Seek and Find: 9:16-9:20 Dragon
by LMSharp
Summary: "They cut him down right in front of me, Uncle!" Cassandra shouted. "I can see them now! Send me to the Templars! I can avenge him." One-shots set across Thedas in the lives of several characters. Subjects and Singers of the Song series Part Three, feat. Cassandra, Cullen, Fenris, F!Cousland, Varric, F!Lavellan, F!Hawke, Alistair, F!Tabris, and F!Brosca. AU elements. M for safety.
1. Cassandra: A New Path

**Characters: **Cassandra Pentaghast, Vestalus Pentaghast, Seeker Byron

**Pairings:** None

**AU Elements:** None

* * *

**9:16 Dragon**

**The Rooms of Vestalus Pentaghast, the Grand Necropolis, Nevarra**

Everything felt cold and empty. A wooden block seemed to have taken up residence in Cassandra's throat, and she did not think she had been able to say three sentences since they had moved Anthony's body out of Uncle Vestalus's house and into his own house in the Grand Necropolis, where something else would start living in it. Anthony was gone. His spirit had gone back to the Maker. It had been stolen from her.

She sat in the lounge and stared at the wall. She couldn't feel her body. Her torso, legs, and arms had turned to stone. Or to ice. She was a statue of a girl. She wished her spirit had left, gone with Anthony's to the Maker's side. But the way was barred to her, just as it had been when Mother and Father died.

_My Maker, know my heart:_

_Take from me a life of sorrow._

_Lift from me a world of pain._

The door creaked open. "Oh, Cassandra," Uncle Vestalus sighed. "Have you slept or eaten at all?"

"I don't know. I don't care." Cassandra didn't look at Uncle Vestalus. She couldn't. He was a mage too, wasn't he? Just like the monsters that had killed Anthony. He was prelate of the Mortalitasi. She knew he had rivals. Enemies. What had he done, over the years, for power?

"Has anyone found them?" she asked.

"We arranged search parties to pursue the maleficarum in several directions. They have not been found."

Suddenly, Cassandra was furious. Her throat loosened, and she was on her feet, shouting. "They cut him down right in front of me, Uncle! Right in front of me! I can see them now! Can see his . . . he would not help them. He rebuffed them. Worked so both of us could escape. He was _brave_. He was _good_. He was _sixteen years old_. And they killed him. You knew within three hours what had happened. It has been _five days_, and they _have not been found_? They could be anywhere now. They could get away with it! They could kill someone else!"

She raked her fingers through her hair, tears streaming from her eyes. "If you will not find them, I will," she declared. "Send _me_ to the Templars. I'll hunt these maleficarum and every one under the sun!"

Uncle Vestalus reached out to her, and Cassandra flinched away. "Don't put a hand on me!"

"Cassandra."

Cassandra turned away and sank back onto the sofa, weeping. "I have to do something," she sobbed. "I have to find them. You don't understand. He was all I had left! I have to catch them. I want to. I want to fight. Please!"

Uncle Vestalus sank down beside her. He was quiet for a long time. Then he said, "I grieve for Anthony too. I loved him too. The maleficarum who slew him were wicked and cruel, and I too wish them found, and punished. But before you could do it, as a Templar. You're upset, niece. You don't know what you're saying."

Cassandra rounded on him. "Don't say I don't know what I am saying! I'm not a child! I want to join the Templars. I want to stop maleficarum. I can do it! I'm as fast and as strong as Anthony ever was. You know I am! I can avenge him. I can protect people."

She stared into his dark eyes, fierce and defiant. He stared back at her. Then he shook his head. "Go to the kitchens and have the servants make you something to eat. A proper meal, with meat, vegetables, and wine. Eat it all. Then go to your room and try to sleep. In two months, if you still want to go to the Templars, we will discuss it again then."

"I will not change my mind."

But Uncle Vestalus would not listen. "In two months, perhaps I will believe you. You're angry, Cassandra. You're grieving, and you're exhausted. Our hunters will catch the maleficarum who slew Anthony, or they will not, but _you_ will not catch them. If you truly wish to devote your life to the pursuit of others, the resolve will not cool given time to consider."

Cassandra swallowed. "I will not change my mind," she repeated. "But I will do as you ask."

* * *

TWO MONTHS LATER

The very evening that marked two months since her uncle had told her to wait, Cassandra went to see him in his library. The mage-lights above his desk made her run cold, but she held herself high, standing in the posture Anthony had taught her before him—that of the warrior at rest.

"I still wish to join the Templars, Uncle," she said. "Will you let me go?" If he did not, she thought, she would leave this place anyway and travel, away from Nevarra, and seek training in Orlais, or the Free Marches. But her uncle did not need to know that.

Her uncle sighed and closed his book. "I shall," he said quietly. "But not to the Templars. As you have considered your path, so have I. Cassandra, the Templars would destroy you. Perhaps you do not know what they sacrifice to become what they are—"

"I would make any sacrifice!" Cassandra said hotly.

"But I would _not_ have you make any sacrifice," Uncle Vestalus answered her, quietly. "The Templars are in nearly every Chantry in Thedas; you are familiar with them. But there are others who search out corruption and serve as the final authority over apostates. And over the Templars themselves, if you would believe it. They are a higher order, and an older one. I would send you to the Seekers of Truth, niece, and not to the Templars."

"Seekers of Truth?" Cassandra repeated, suspicious. "Who are they? What do they do?"

"The Seekers of Truth are an ancient order," her uncle told her. "Warriors and investigators. The first Templars came from their ranks, before the establishment of the Chantry itself—though not before Andraste's Chant had first been heard. As to what they do, I have told you. The Templars watch the Circles of Magic, and the Seekers of Truth watch the Templars. They travel widely, burning away corruption in the Circles and among the Templars alike."

"Then they don't deal directly with apostates?" Cassandra demanded. "I don't want to join them."

Uncle Vestalus regarded her across his desk. "A Seeker of Truth encounters plenty of maleficarum in the course of her duties. In fact, a Seeker is more likely than a Templar to deal with cabals of blood mages such as the one that killed Anthony; the destruction of such societies would be seen as within the purview of their Order, above the ability of the Templars, who concern themselves more with the tracking of individual apostates. But beyond that, training for the Seekers of Truth is more rigorous than that of the Tempars. Many say they are blessed by the Maker himself for their faith. What is certain is their abilities—considerable, I assure you—are not dependent upon the use of lyrium."

Cassandra brushed that aside as an irritating fly. So Templars needed lyrium to fuel their abilities against mages. What of it? Less of the stuff that maleficarum could use in their wicked spells. She was more interested in the other thing Uncle Vestalus had said. "The Seekers take down entire groups of maleficarum?"

Uncle Vestalus paused, frowning. "They have other responsibilities—"

But it was a yes. Cassandra saw that. "I'll go to them," she said. "When can I leave?"

Uncle Vestalus sat back in his chair. "I wrote to the Lord Seeker to inquire whether they might have a place for you three weeks ago," he said heavily. "I received his reply two days since. You may travel to Val Royeaux as soon as you wish. They will train you. Whether you succeed and become a Seeker or not, I'm afraid, will depend on you.

"I would escort you myself," Uncle Vestalus added. "But my duties to the Necropolis and to His Majesty keep me here. But I can arrange a contingent of male and female guards to accompany you within the week."

"Do it," Cassandra said. Purpose blazed in her like she had never felt before. She would become one of Uncle's Seekers of Truth. She would investigate entire groups of apostates, seek them out and destroy them as soon as they formed, before they could cause any grief like Anthony's killers had caused her. "Thank you, Uncle."

She bowed and started to go, but Uncle Vestalus stood from behind his desk, and something in his face made her wait. "You have not been happy here," he said. His voice was quiet. "The Grand Necropolis is no place for a child. And I know I have been a . . . difficult guardian. I regret what part I may have played in your suffering. I grieve what you have lost with your brother's death almost as much as I grieve my nephew himself. I suspect you will not miss me. But . . . I shall miss you, Cassandra."

Cassandra looked down at her feet, face burning. She wished he had just let her go. She wished she could lie to him. His love for her pulled at her, asked for a response that she could not give. "You have been good to me," she said carefully. He had always loved her father more than he had loved her, she thought, loved the Pentaghast name she carried and what he expected of a noble lady of their family. But if that was true, she thought, would he be saying all this now? Would he have agreed to send her to the Seekers, an even more difficult order of warriors than the Templars? He had never lied to her. He could have just kept her at home—or tried, anyway. He wasn't doing that.

But she would not miss him, and would miss the Grand Necropolis even less. She never had grown used to the smell here: heavy, funereal perfumes and embalmed flesh. The wisps in the corpses of the dead made her shiver. She had been isolated here, separated from everything truly human and alive, and she was glad that part of her life would be over now.

_I could be kinder if he were not a mage. _She recognized that, and was ashamed of it. But every time she looked at Uncle Vestalus now, she saw the robes he wore and his white sorcerer's hands, and thought of the power those hands wielded.

Uncle Vestalus seemed to know too, and that just made it worse. Looking at her, he sighed. "As good as I knew to be," he said quietly. "Go well, child. Pack your things. I shall make the arrangements for your escort, and I'll see you before you leave."

Cassandra made a curtsey and fled.

* * *

**Citadel of the Seekers of Truth, Val Royeaux, Orlais**

FIVE WEEKS LATER

"Again," Seeker Byron instructed in that blasted calm, even tone of his. He wasn't even sweating! Sweat poured down Cassandra's face, stinging her eyes and filling her mouth with the taste of salt. The Maker could no doubt smell her all the way from the Fade, whether he was paying any attention or not.

Cassandra glared up at the Seeker who had been assigned to be her teacher. His long, once-dark hair, tied back at the base of his skull, was iron gray now. It was inching away from his forehead. As if to make up for it, his prodigious mustache thrust out from his lip. It reminded her of a boar-bristle hairbrush. Seeker Byron was old, but he had destroyed any illusions he was frail or weak in the first three days she had been here. He was as immovable as a gnarled old oak, burly and strong. He fought like no one she had ever seen, including Anthony, and could keep going long after she was exhausted, doubled over and vomiting in the corner of the practice yard. He did not spare her because she was a girl, because she was noble or pretty or even young. She already bore multiple bruises from combat training sessions with the Seeker, and she had been his student no more than ten days.

Combat training sessions. She was beginning to feel she had not known the meaning of the term. But she was determined to master all Seeker Byron had to teach. Let the mages fear her then! Cassandra rubbed her forehead on her tunic sleeve. It was almost as damp as her skin. She took up her stance. Seeker Byron saluted her and stood ready.

She charged.

It ended ignobly, as it always did, and painfully, as it usually did. Cassandra sprawled on the trampled grass of the yard and stared up at the clouds moving through the clear blue sky above Val Royeaux. The bells from the Grand Cathedral, so close she had hardly believed it and still found it hard to credit, rang out the hour. Cassandra closed her eyes, completely spent.

"Your difficulty is not that you are weak, Cassandra," Seeker Byron said, quietly. "You are unskilled, but your difficulty is that you are rash; headstrong; passionate and impatient. Your anger overcomes you, and so you are beaten. Skill can be taught to anyone, albeit at different paces. Patience can be taught as well—but only if _you_ have the will to learn it."

"I just need to be sharper," Cassandra panted. "More alert and aware. I can drill the moves, perhaps."

"Here." Cassandra opened her eyes to see Seeker Byron had extended a calloused hand approximately the size and shape of a garden spade. She took it and let him help her to her feet. Her knees shook, and she knew she would be vomiting again if she did not rest or drink water soon. "Drill will make this way of moving more natural to you, yes. Instinctive. You should run the exercises I have shown you on your own, and we will continue to spar. Your form will be corrected, and your stamina will improve. But we must make time for your other lessons. They do not come as easily to you."

Cassandra laughed. "Easily!"

Seeker Byron smiled. "Yes, well. Learning is pain and trial, by and large. The arduous accumulation of experience." His Orlesian accent was soft and soothing. Here in Val Royeaux, a center of trade for all of Thedas, Cassandra had found that many people spoke the common tongue the dwarves had invented so long ago for their merchant highways, but familiar language patterns lingered. Cassandra's harsher consonants and deeper vowels, and Seeker Byron's rising intonation, nasal placement, and words that sounded like music.

"Go. Clean yourself up then meet me in the study. We will see what you can recite of the first cantos in the Canticle of Benedictions before prayers."

Cassandra almost exclaimed her distaste, then bit it back. Seeker Byron still caught her expression. "Spiritual training will, I think, be far more important to you than anything we do out here, Cassandra," he said. There was an edge of sternness to his voice. "You are a warrior, but your spirit should not be always battling. You _must _find peace and security in the Maker."

Cassandra thought of the mages who had killed Anthony. "I don't know how I can," she whispered. "But I will try."

* * *

**A/N:** I**f you've been reading this series, welcome back to The Subject and the Singers of the Song—less of a story and more of a symphony, featuring many different instruments, each with their own melody. If this is the first story you've started reading, welcome. This is the third volume of the series, but you can start here as well as anywhere. I didn't group all of these together mostly because a single fic would have two hundred-plus chapters, but also because each volume of this series has its own sort of amorphous focus. The first volume, 9:01–9:10, introduces six of the characters and has the first experiences of childhood for the oldest of them. The second volume, 9:11–9:15, finishes introducing the other four and begins to get into childhoods proper. In this third volume, covering 9:16–9:20, things really start to **_**happen**_**. The oldest characters begin to become people you may be more familiar with, but you will see character and setting facets you recognize in even the youngest.**

**A word to those unfamiliar with how I'm working on these: I follow canon fairly closely—sometimes, as you can see, borrowing from expanded universe material like **_**The Dawn of the Seeker**_**—but sometimes canon interferes with the story I want to tell, and I abandon it. I'll list AU elements at the beginning of every chapter along with the character tags and pairings, but for this part of the series, this is what you need to know: **

**Cullen Rutherford was born in 9:05 Dragon instead of 9:11, making him some six years older than the wiki estimates. I made this decision because, in all three games, Cullen is animated to look much older than he is speculated to be, and in addition, I found it unbelievable that Meredith would make a twenty-year-old Templar of only two years' experience a captain, as would be the case in the first act of **_**DA2**_** if Cullen were actually born in 9:11. **

**Cullen is the third-born child in his family instead of the second-born, making his brother Branson his elder as well as Mia. I changed this for better conformity with quasi-medieval or Renaissance family norms for someone in Cullen's social class; as the second-born son, he would have more freedom to choose his own career than he would as the eldest son. **

**As a result of my other decisions about Cullen's age and position, the rest of his timeline is shifted some four or five years ahead of the wiki summary. In this particular fic, that means that instead of deciding he wants to be a Templar at age eight, Cullen decides to be a Templar at age twelve, and doesn't actually join the Order for years afterward.**

**May not actually be AU due to Danarius's history of lying and generally being an awful person, but Fenris was not from Seheron. He picked up on Qunlat due to geographic proximity and in his training at the Carastes gymnasium, but in this story, Leto, the elf that later becomes Fenris, lived the first twelve years of his life in Ventus (or Qarinus), just south of Seheron and across the channel.**

**William Cousland is still teyrn of Highever well into young Cousland's childhood, with Bryce Cousland and Eleanor teyrn- and teyrna-in-waiting. I had to have a grandparent somewhere in here. For more on my history of the Couslands, see Chapter 9 in the first installment of the series. **

**Ilsa Tethras is not an alcoholic.**

**Another potential difference that may not necessarily be one: Alistair does not live in the stables at Castle Redcliffe until he is eight years old.**

**While potential-Warden Brosca's father did go to the surface to try to make his fortune, abandoning Kalah, for the purposes of this story, he was Mining Caste, not casteless like Kalah herself, and Kalah's relationship with him, like her relationship with Rica's father, was orchestrated in an attempt to raise herself up. **

**Finally, Alistair is not sent away from Castle Redcliffe in 9:20. This change was to solve what I see as the problem of Connor Guerrin. The most logical time for Alistair to have been sent away from Redcliffe was when Eamon's wife was feeling most insecure about his place in Eamon's house—when she had just conceived an heir or when he was newborn. And Alistair knows Connor's name and knows about him. But if Connor was born in or around 9:20 Dragon, that would make him ten years old in 9:30—and he just seems a bit younger than that. So like Cullen, Alistair's getting time-shifted. Just a little. A benefit of this is that he'll have spent the majority of his childhood with Arl Eamon, which makes sense on a number of levels. **

**Anyway, this story is weird. I don't anticipate a lot more response than the first two have had. There's no continuous plot and very little shipping yet, and the truth is that it's ONLY rated M for safety. And like the second installment, that's only for a **_**couple**_** of chapters. There will be some graphic street-fighting and some disturbing scenes of poverty, and one description of a trauma extreme enough to change one character into someone else entirely, but most of the story is a light T.**

**Best Always,**

**LMSharp**


	2. Cullen: The Wolves of Honnleath

**Characters: **OFC dog character Ceres, Cullen Rutherford, OMC Horace, Branson Rutherford, OMC Titus Rutherford, OMC Edwin, OFC Nessa, Matthias, OMC Geoff, OMC Regan, Mia Rutherford, OMC Ser Wilbert, OFC Ser Sarna, OFC Lilah, OFC Selma (Wilhelm's widow and Matthias's mother), OMC Ser Eoghan, OMC Circle Mage (unnamed), OMC Rolf, and various other Honnleath natives that are named and mentioned but do not speak or interact meaningfully with the primary characters

**Pairings: **Mentioned Titus/Theodora Rutherford and Wilhelm/Selma. Unrequited Branson Rutherford/Nessa, and teased Matthias/Mia Rutherford, if you squint.

**AU Elements: **Cullen's entire story has been timeslid somewhat. He was born in 9:05 Dragon instead of 9:11 Dragon. He is the third child and second son instead of the second child and first son, making his brother Branson his elder as well as Mia. He is twelve instead of eight when he decides to become a Templar, and will join the Order some years after age thirteen. There are also no Templars stationed in Honnleath, which is a fairly small village.

* * *

**9:17 Dragon**

**Honnleath, the Arling of Redcliffe, Ferelden**

i.

Ceres wouldn't play with him. Annoyingly, it seemed she knew her business. Cullen had tried sticks, dodging this way and that, poking and harrying her to try to rile her up and get her all excited. She just huffed at him through her furry jaws, twitched her ears, moved away from him, and kept watching the idiot sheep. Cullen threw himself down on the hillside and kicked at a tuft of grass.

He was so bored. He could handle watching the sheep when Branson or Father were really in charge and he could talk to them. But the pair of them had gone to market to sell wool, raw and spun, undyed and dyed with the colors they could manage from the plants Mother and Mia could find and grow. They probably hadn't needed to both go, but Father had said something about wanting to get Branson used to bargaining and Cullen used to watching his own flock. That had been that.

Watching his own flock. Cullen didn't_ want_ his own flock. It was beyond generous for Father to offer him a third of the flock that would be Branson's one day to start with when he was ready to live his own life. Generous of Father and generous of Branson, because he hadn't said one word of complaint. And Cullen didn't know what else he could do, but nothing ever happened watching sheep. Just a walk to the pastures and a walk back to the pen, every day. Sheep-shearing and lambing in the spring. Training a new dog every seven years or so, and otherwise, _nothing_ _happened_.

He wanted . . . he didn't know what he wanted. To be a soldier, maybe, except no one wanted another war. To be a brother in the Chantry, except he couldn't sit still when the other sisters and brothers taught them about Andraste and the Chant of Light. He knew the boy and the two girls in Honnleath they would probably want for the Chantry, and he wouldn't be one of them. Most of the time, Cullen could just about manage _good_, but as hard as he tried, he couldn't manage _clever_—or _scholarly_, anyway—and you had to be both to work in the Chantry. But he didn't want to live and die out here. Watching sheep. Father was the best man Cullen knew, and Branson was a halfway decent brother, but days like today, out here alone as the hours crawled by, Cullen could see his future stretched out ahead of him, and it made him want to scream.

Ceres barked. "Oh, now you want to play," Cullen complained.

She barked again and started growling, and Cullen sat up.

Ceres was crouched low to the ground, her lip drawn back against her sharp, white teeth. Her shaggy fur suddenly was standing on end. Her tail was rigid. The wind changed, and several of the sheep bleated in alarm.

Cullen stood. At the base of the hill, three wolves were crouched, beginning to slink upward.

Cullen went cold. Time seemed to slow down, and his mind seemed, suddenly, perfectly clear. Every detail of the pasture seemed to come into sharp focus. Every blade of grass, every shadow. The two wolves sneaking around the other side of the hill, on Cullen's right. Cullen gripped his staff tight in his right hand, and with his left, brought up the whistle Father had bought for him years ago but he had never had to use.

He blew five sharp blasts on the whistle—the alarm signal. Once. Twice. Then a wolf lunged upward. Ceres snarled, and it fell back. Cullen's mouth was dry. Without taking his eyes off the wolves, he scooped up a stone and threw it, not at the wolf that had feinted toward them, but at another on the other side of the group. His aim was precise, and the stone hit hard. His target yelped, and the other wolves snarled in rage.

"Yah! Yah! Get out of here!" Cullen shouted. Behind him, the flock was instinctively grouping together, facing outward, making it difficult for the predators to get any one of them on its own. "Get out of here, or I'll hurt you!"

For ordinary wolves, that would probably be enough. But these were too skinny. It had been a dry year. Less good grass, less good game, less food for the predators. One of the three wolves charged at Ceres. Cullen stooped and threw another rock. Another yelp told him it connected. But now Ceres and the wolf were fighting. The other two wolves with her wolf were closing in. And the other two were harrying the flock, dashing and snapping at them. The sheep ran away, but that was what the wolves wanted. When the sheep ran, they could work together to herd one of them away from the others.

Cullen dashed toward the wolves bothering the sheep, leaving Ceres alone. He felt sick, but she had sharp teeth, a strong jaw, and powerful muscles. She had courage. The sheep had none of that.

"Help! Wolves!" Cullen yelled, beating at one of them with his staff. Those snarling, snapping teeth were too close to him. He could smell the dirt and mud in the wolves' matted fur, see the ragged ends of their claws. Both of the pair were on him now, and Cullen laid about him with his staff, left and right. He kicked out with his heavy boots. _Crack! Crack! Crack!_

He rotated his hips just in time to get his knee clear of a vicious bite. "Wolves! Help! Help!" Behind him, he could hear Ceres fighting a battle just as violent as his own, taking on three wolves at once—and the wolves weren't the only ones yelping with pain.

"Hold on, Ceres! Just hold on!"

Cullen jabbed with his staff and felt bone break on the other end. His stomach lurched, and the she-wolf who he had injured, gray-white with short ears, howled and whimpered, backing away. Limping. Her packmate, long and lean and yellow-eyed, looked after her, growling at Cullen, snapping, but moving back himself.

"That's right! Get out of here!"

"Cullen!"

More than one voice was calling his name. More rocks whistled through the air—thrown by the neighbor, Horace. Slung by Branson. "Get 'em, Ceres! Ya! Ya!"

Father was beside Ceres, clubbing wolves with his own staff until the last of them turned and ran back over the fields.

Then Branson was blowing another signal on his own whistle, letting the village know the wolves had been driven away, shrilling a third signal for help from the neighbors to round up the five or six sheep that had fled out of sight in the attack. Father was embracing him. "Cullen! Are you hurt? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. How is Ceres?"

Cullen fought free of Father and made his way to the sheepdog. She was bleeding from wounds on her left front paw and hindquarters, a torn ear, and a scratch on her nose. But none of them looked serious, and she grinned up at Cullen even as she whined gently. "Good girl," he whispered, falling to his knees beside her. "Oh, _good _girl." He touched her neck gently, and pulled some jerky out of the pouch at his belt to feed to her. She accepted it as her due, then whined again, looking out over the field at her charges.

"Five of them! _Five_ of the cursed beasts!" Horace was roaring. His face was red, and his smile stretched all the way across his face. "Blight take this wretched drought, but you fought them off! Titus, I knew you raised good dogs, but I never knew your boy was such a warrior!"

"If you hadn't come when you did—" Cullen started.

"You had them on the run, brother," Branson disagreed. "We all saw it. We were headed back from market anyway. I don't think I've ever seen Father run as fast as he did when we heard your signal. I don't think _I've_ ever run so fast! Then we see you, beating off two of those monsters while Ceres took on the other three. It was like something from a song!"

"It was horrible," Cullen said frankly. "They're just hungry and desperate, you can tell, but they're so _smart_, and there were _five_ . . ." He shuddered. He stood up and looked in the same direction Ceres was. "We need to round up the rest of the sheep." He did a quick count. "Five of them were scared enough to break away completely. If the wolves catch them before we do, all this will have been for nothing."

Men were beginning to gather around. "What's happened, Titus? We heard the alarm and then the signal you need some help," a man named Edwin asked.

"Wolves in the area. Pack of five, as far as we've seen," Father responded. "We've driven them off for now, but five sheep bolted. We need to get them all rounded up and back in the pen under guard until a hunt's been organized. If we can kill one or two of the wolves, they'll decide to do their hunting someplace else. I could probably find the sheep with my eldest girl and my boys here, but every minute may count. We'd be grateful for your help."

Those that had their own livestock to see to voted to go secure their own animals, but three men volunteered to help, and Horace said he would round up the men, horses, and dogs for a hunt. And Cullen was sent home to get Mia to help out—and to bring back hunting bows for all of them.

But before Cullen left, Father hugged him again, a rib-creaking monster of a hug. "Don't scare me like that, Cullen," he said gruffly. "But you did well. Very well. We'll have to go and celebrate later, when every man and every creature is safe."

* * *

ii.

TWO DAYS LATER

Outside the public house and down the square, by the tanner's, two wolf pelts were stretched out and drying. Not the entire pack; but they hadn't needed to kill the entire pack, Cullen's father had told him. Just enough that the wolves would know Honnleath was a bad and dangerous place to hunt and move on.

"Come bring my little brother some ale, Nessa!" Branson called from where he sat beside Cullen inside the public house. Nessa, the barmaid, was a good-humored girl with a wide smile, a little older than Mia.

She looked Cullen over wryly, then glanced at his father, sitting on his other side. "Little young for this place, isn't he? Mister Titus, and what is it you're thinking, bringing your little son in here?"

"I've been here before," Cullen said defensively.

Nessa's bright eyes reminded him of a bird's. She wasn't half so pretty as Bryony the carpenter's daughter, and Cullen didn't understand why Branson and some of the older boys and men liked her so much, but her stare still made him blush. "Have you now? Been here after dark?" She looked around the public house expressively.

Cullen blushed darker. It was true that the public house was a much different building now than it had been other times he'd visited for breakfast with Father and Branson, or with Mia for lunch out on an errand. Rolf and Enid made good food, and while Mother cooked just as well, sometimes a change was fun. Anyway, the public house had all the news no one would talk about in the Chantry on a rest day.

But now—red-faced men were laughing and singing hunting songs and drinking songs, loudly and off-key. In the corner, some more of them were playing a game of dice like one Mother had swatted Branson over the head once for trying to teach Cullen; and by the fire some of the older men, with long, gray beards, were talking in low voices about trade and how Honnleath was going to do this winter. Cullen saw Enid behind the counter with Rolf like usual, but the only other woman besides Nessa in the place was Rinna, sitting on her sweetheart Tobold's lap and giggling. Cullen bit his lip and looked down at the big, wooden table instead.

"A little grace for the boy, Ness," Father said, gently, putting his hand on Cullen's shoulder. "He's twelve summers now, and he's done a man's work these past few days."

Nessa considered Cullen. The sharp, teasing light in her eyes faded into one of respect. "I'd heard your family was involved in all that. Your flock the wolves went after, wasn't it?"

"It was," Father confirmed. "Branson and I were off to market that day."

Branson broke in. "Little brother here held 'em off—five of them, with just our dog Ceres to help—until the rest of us could get there." He shook his head then. "He had them on the run before we arrived. Then he goes and _shoots_ one on the hunt, and manages to kill it too! Twelve summers old! It's embarrassing!" He slung his arm with Father's around Cullen's shoulders. "So some ale, Nessa, please? _I_ need it, if _he_ doesn't, to drown my sorrows at having missed out on all the runt's heroics."

Cullen was as embarrassed as he could remember being. "I'm not—I didn't—"he shook his head, angry now. "I only hit it because _you_ hit it in the head with your sling. It was stunned. I didn't even know I had hit it until Sedge told me!" In fact, he had been frightened when Sedge had shown him his arrow. He had never killed anything bigger than a chicken or a trout before. Mia had hugged him afterward. He wished she was here now, instead of home with Mother and Rosalie.

Despite the teasing tone he was taking now, Branson had been a little cross with Cullen after the hunt. Now, though, he was enjoying Cullen's embarrassment. "See how modest he is?" he crowed.

Nessa grinned, still watching Cullen. "He's blushing, Maker bless him! Very well, you rogue. Some ale for you, your father, and for the young hero too." She flounced away to fill the order.

Branson ruffled Cullen's hair. "For such a ruthless killer, you're pretty shy, brother," he observed.

Cullen glared at his brother. "Ruthless killer? I did what I had to. Then what I was supposed to. I wish you all wouldn't talk so much about it."

"It's good to celebrate your successes, son," Father told him. "Good to let others celebrate your accomplishments. Be generous enough not to spit on praise you've earned. You showed yourself brave and skillful with the wolves, and it's our pleasure to honor you for it."

"And to get rip-roaring drunk over the achievement!" Horace called from a nearby table. "To the Wolf Slayers!" he roared. Other men in the public house roared with him, raising their tankards high.

Nessa came back with tankards for Cullen, Father, and Branson. Father and Branson waited for him to take the first sip.

Cullen coughed and gagged when he tasted the ale. "That's terrible!" he gasped. "You drink this? You _like_ it?"

Branson was laughing too hard to answer. Father was chuckling too. It was Horace that boomed out an answer from across the room. "Damn right! Not the taste that matters, son! It's the _feel_ of it! Puts the hair on your chest and a fire in your belly! Drink up!"

Cullen looked at Father. He smiled and gestured encouragingly, and Cullen took another sip.

It wasn't any better the second time, but at least he managed to swallow. He felt it burning all the way down his throat. Father nodded, satisfied. "Some bread, sausage, and gravy, if you please, Ness," he called. "Horace and the others can do what they like, but if I bring her youngest boy home rip-roaring drunk, 'Dora will have my hide."

That brought another round of laugher to the public house. "You're not missing too much," Branson told Cullen, as Cullen forced down another swallow of ale. He was getting the hang of it, he thought, pleased with himself. "I got drunk a couple of times, up here with some of the lads. Felt dizzy during and sick after, and Father and Mother both yelled. A little ale's fun. Warms you right up, better than mulled cider. Good conversation. You feel like all's right with the world. Too much—" he made a face. "You lose control. Act like a fool and can't stop yourself. It's not worth it." He looked sideways at Father, and grinned. "Not more than once, anyway. For the bragging rights."

He expected a reprimand, but Father just smiled at him. "You're trying to look the scoundrel, Bran, but all you do is prove your good sense. How many times have Alma and Annis moaned to me and to your mother that they wish their children had half the wisdom of ours—"

"That's it," Branson moaned, sinking his head to bang it on the table. "You've ruined it."

Nessa brought their suppers, and the three of them shouted at and talked to the other people in the public house. With a wink from Father, Branson went off to observe the dicing after a while. Father fell in with the men talking seriously by the fire.

Cullen drifted, welcomed wherever he went. He avoided Tobald and Rinna, until they were decent enough to get themselves someplace else, but otherwise, it was nice to see a different side of the village than he was usually allowed. He played a game of chess with old Havard, and won. He tried very hard to talk the town musician, Lutir, out of mentioning him by name in the song he was writing to commemorate the hunt and thought he managed it, before Branson told him Lutir was also the town drunk, and so far gone tonight that he probably wouldn't remember he'd started to write a song in the morning, and if he did, certainly wouldn't remember Cullen had asked him not to name names.

Cullen got over his embarrassment and enjoyed himself, and was just starting to get sleepy and wish for home when there was trouble. It started with Geoff, of course. He came late with some older boys—almost men, really. And after getting their drinks from Nessa, the four of them homed in on Matthias, sitting in the corner. Cullen saw Matthias tense when they walked up.

"There you are, widow's son! Kind of you to keep our table warm for us!" Geoff, a stocky, handsome boy of nineteen or so, smiled widely at his friends. Cullen didn't like them. Branson had had some trouble with them a couple years back, before he started getting tall like Father and learned the sling and how to handle himself. Geoff mocked the Revered Mother when her back was turned and seemed to think he was better than anyone else in town because his father owned a few head of druffalo. The problem was, a few of the other boys in the village seemed to think so too.

Geoff and his friends had Matthias cornered. Matthias was a strange boy, a year older than Mia, and Cullen had never liked him much either. He wasn't friendly, had a tendency to be sarcastic, and Cullen had never forgotten the ridiculous lies Matthias had used to tell about his dead father, Wilhelm, and the statue that stood in the center of the village. Cullen always thought the world was interesting enough without making things up. But Matthias was alone, and he looked nervous and angry, and a few people nearby besides Cullen had noticed.

"I was here before you were," Matthias said, quietly.

"Look, we forgive you for not knowing it's our table, Matty-boy," Geoff said. "We always sit here. Don't we, Regan?" One of the boys with Geoff agreed, chuckling. It wasn't a happy or a friendly sound. "So if you'll just skulk off and do . . . whatever you do . . ." Geoff's voice was light, pleasant. But his eyes were hard. Matthias seemed to shrink in on himself. His eyes darted from side to side, looking for an out. If the other boys wanted him to leave, they weren't making it easy for him.

"Son," Father said to Geoff, standing up from his place by the fire. "That's enough. Matthias isn't hurting anyone where he is, and he was here first."

"It's fine, Mister Rutherford," Matthias said. He stood up, pushing his supper away. It was only half finished. "I was just leaving anyway. I don't want any trouble."

"Trouble?" Geoff repeated, raising his hands high. His expression was dramatic and comical. "Who wants any trouble? None of us want any trouble, mage's get. Let us just get out of your way." With exaggerated motions, he gestured for his companions to step back and gave Matthias a deep, mocking bow, with a flourish. "Thank you for your graciousness."

Branson had come back to stand beside Cullen now, and a little in front of him. His arms were folded, and his shoulders were stiff as he watched Geoff and his companions.

Matthias moved to leave his table. As he did, Cullen just saw Geoff stick out his leg at the last moment and send Matthias stumbling to the floor. Geoff pretended to trip as well, flipping his tankard as he did so that its contents spilled all over Matthias. But then, no one cared about that, because as Matthias, surprised and dripping in ale, fell down, his hands flew out—and fire flew out with them.

Cullen yelled in surprise. So did several people. Then the ale-soaked table Matthias had been sitting at was blazing and crackling, billowing smoke. Geoff was screaming, clutching his face, beating out the flames in his hair with his hands.

"Geoff! I didn't mean it!" Matthias was pleading. "Please! Let me help! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

"Get away from me!" Geoff's scream sounded as if it tore his throat. "Aaaagh! Aaagh!"

"Put that fire out!"

"Sweet Maker above!"

"Blight take you, what have you done to him?!"

"Get out of here!"

Nessa was running at the blazing table with a bucket, tossing it over the flames, trying to keep them from spreading. And Cullen, on instinct, turned on his heel and ran for the well out behind the public house. "Good boy!" Horace called after him. "Sedge, Lewell, Regan, Bran, wake the neighbors! Get sackin', more buckets! Form a line! Don't let that fire spread!"

"Come away, lads!" Father was yelling.

By the time Cullen had pulled up another bucket from the well, a line of runners had formed to dash the buckets in. Bran was coming up with sacking from the neighbors' woodpiles, tying it to the well's rope to soak it. Nessa was bringing Cullen the empty bucket from before. Cullen lowered buckets and raised them up again, lowered them and raised them up again until shouts came from the pub, "It's out! The fire's out!"

Cullen looked at Lewall, the man beside him that had been directing traffic. He was a man past thirty, but he looked as scared as Cullen felt, his eyes wide and glassy. People had emerged from the houses around the pub, holding young children or the hands of the elders and looking curious.

Cullen swallowed, and ran back into the pub. Only Rolf, Horace, Branson, and Sedge were still around, standing around the blackened table where the fire had started. The floor and the wall around it were black too, and smoke was thick all over the room. Horace looked up at Cullen and then down at Branson, beside him, as if just remembering Cullen's brother was there. "Get out of here, lads," Horace told them. "Air in here's no good for breathing, and it won't be for a while. You did well, both of you. Go to your father."

Father was outside, and there was a crowd around him.

"He's a mage!" someone was yelling. The cry was taken up around the square.

"He could've killed us!" someone else said. "Burned us all to a crisp in a moment!"

"He wanted to!"

"I didn't. I didn't mean to, Mister Rutherford, I swear. Geoff, you have to believe me—"

That was Matthias, white-faced and trembling, standing behind Father, extending his hand to Geoff. Geoff was on the ground. His face and hands looked horrible—blistered and swollen and red—and his eyes were closed, leaking tears. He shuddered as each fell, and his breaths came out as a low, constant moan.

"You stay away from him!" A woman yelled shrilly. "You just stay away from him! You've done enough, demon-worshipper!"

"I'm not!" Matthias insisted. "I didn't even know—I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

"That doesn't heal the boy, son," Father told him, sharply, but not like he was angry. "Listen up!" he called out to everyone else in a loud, carrying voice. "I and half a dozen other witnesses who were in Rolf's public house just now can testify what happened just now was probably an accident. Matthias here was caught off guard and provoked, and I think he was as surprised as everyone and more horrified than anyone at what happened."

"But look what he did to Geoff!" someone shouted.

"He's a danger to all of us!"

"Quiet now!" Father shouted back. "You're not helping! If you want to help, go rouse Ruthan. Get Geoff to her house for as much healing as she can provide."

"I'll go," someone said. One of Geoff's other friends—Tomas, Cullen thought his name was—stepped forward. He stooped to pick Geoff up off the ground, shooting Matthias a deadly look as he did so. Geoff cried out as Tomas touched him.

"No—don't. Leave it!"

"We need to get you to the healer, boy," Father told him. "Go with your friend."

The villagers quieted as they watched Tomas and Geoff stumble off. The woman that had yelled at Matthias followed, after a moment, fists clenched and jaw tight. But the others stayed circled around the pub, staring at Father, standing in front of Matthias. "And what are we going to do about him?" Regan demanded, gesturing at Matthias.

"Father—" Branson said, his voice small. "He's a _mage_."

"So he is, Bran," Father said, loudly so everyone else could hear him too. "He's a mage, and he's hurt somebody. But stringing him up right here won't help Geoff, will it?" Father looked back at the crowd. "Go home," he told them. "It's late. I'll take the boy into my personal protection until the Templars can hold him responsible for what he's done here. It's their place to punish what needs punishing, not ours. The Maker wouldn't love us for that."

The grumbling out by the torches and candles around the pub sounded angry, and scared, but people started shuffling away anyway. Father looked down at Matthias, who was still pale and trembling. He was twisting his hands together in front of him, looking down at the ground. "Theodora said Selma was crazy to marry Wilhelm," Father said. "I thought after all this time it had turned out all right. Blasted way to find out you take after him after all."

"I didn't mean to—I didn't know—Maker forgive me—I—" Matthias was weeping, and he didn't seem like he knew it. Cullen could see the tears on his cheeks in the lantern light, but his expression was the same shocked and frozen horror as before. "I _hate_ him—but Maker—"

"And that'll be as much of a problem as the other," Father told him. "I'll speak for you, and I'll wager Nessa, Enid, and one or two others will too, but everyone knows exactly what kind of bastard Geoff is. Be a hard sell you didn't mean to hurt him."

"The Templars—"

"They'll have to be called, son. Your father had king's leave to live apart from the Circle among us. You don't. And there have to be consequences for this."

Matthias shook his head. His shaggy light blond hair shook around his face. "I want there to be. You shouldn't have stopped them. I—"

"Let 'em rip you apart when they're angry and scared? That's not justice. Bran?"

"Father?" Branson asked. He smelled like smoke, and his clothes were scorched. In the lantern light outside the pub, his eyes looked swollen and red. He wasn't quite looking at Matthias, his body turned away from the older boy. _He's afraid_, Cullen realized. It was a different kind of fear than he'd seen Branson feel before—for the boys that had bothered him, for wolves or war or a long, hard winter. There was something different about this. Farther away, stranger, and more dangerous.

_Am I afraid? _

A little, Cullen decided. The fire had been horrible. Geoff's blisters were horrible. And it was worse that Matthias hadn't even meant to do it. But Cullen was scared more of the neighbors—men and women and boys and girls he had known all his life—and how they had circled around Matthias like . . . _like the wolves, but even worse. They weren't just hungry; they _hated _him. And they weren't smart either; they weren't even thinking. _

Father was still talking to Branson. "Borrow Horace's mare and ride out in the morning," he said. "Go to Redcliffe and tell the Revered Mother in the Chantry there what's happened. She'll send some Templars back with you. They'll supply you for the way back, but tell your mother to prepare you for at least a three-day journey. And go armed. Run along home now."

Branson's mouth twisted, but he nodded. He gripped Cullen's arm in brief farewell and left. "You and your mother should stay with us," Father told Matthias. "There'll be trouble until he gets back. Cullen and the girls can sleep in the barn, and the two of you can have their room. Be safer."

"No—I don't want to put you out anymore than you've already been, Mister Rutherford," Matthias said. He'd stopped crying and stopped shaking. He was still pale. "Thank you for everything, but if I come to your house, it'll just put your family in danger too. Your youngest's only little still. I don't—whatever they want to do to me—"

"They'll regret in less than a week," Father told him, firmly. "And your mother's done nothing at all. You should come with me."

Matthias shook his head again. "I won't have anyone else hurt," he said. "I couldn't stand it. I—" he started crying again. "I should go to my mother," he told Father. "I thank you again—for what you said, and for stopping the fire." He nodded at Cullen then, and walked away. His shoulders shook as he did.

"Proud fool," Father muttered. "Like his father in more ways than one. I don't know—" he sighed and put his hand on Cullen's back. "I didn't mean for your first night's celebration as a man to be quite _this _interesting. I wish you hadn't seen that. Any of it."

"What's going to happen?" Cullen asked, as the two of them started out after Branson for home.

Father sighed again. "Your brother will fetch the Templars, and they'll decide what to do with Matthias. As far as I know, this is the first time the boy's done any magic in his life." He was quiet a moment, then murmured, almost to himself, "_What_ a way to find out you're a mage! If we can keep the rest of the town from killing him until then—"

Cullen frowned. "Won't the Templars just kill him anyway, though? He's an apostate . . ."

"Not if he surrenders, he's not," Father corrected him. "And I think he will. His father had dispensation from the king to live apart from the Circles, but Wilhelm's been dead almost all Matthias's life. No way else for the boy to learn any control, and if he doesn't, someday he really could kill someone. You saw him back there. He doesn't want that. Nobody wants that."

Father's worry scared Cullen almost as much as the neighbors, gathered outside the pub. Tonight had started out so well. "Will they be all right? Geoff and Matthias?"

"I don't know, son. I don't know. Ruthan's a decent herbalist, but burns like Geoff's got? And I can try and set up a watch over Selma's house, but I'm not sure how many will help me out. Nothing scares folks like magic."

There were candles in the house up ahead. Branson had woken up Mother. Probably Mia and Rosie. None of them would be sleeping for a long time. Cullen would have been annoyed about this earlier, but now he had no clue how he would sleep tonight at all. "I thought he was a liar," he told Father finally. "Matthias. Thought there was no way his father could have actually been a mage."

Father's mouth twisted like Branson's did when he heard something he didn't like. "And young ones like you who thought that were probably friendlier than folk my age and older who remembered the truth."

"I'll help watch," Cullen volunteered, suddenly, uncertain why he was saying so. Because he had thought Matthias was a liar, maybe. Because he didn't like how the neighbors had stood around him. Matthias was dangerous, certainly. Certainly, Father was right and there would have to be consequences, even for what he had done by accident. But he also believed what Father had said—_the rest of them will _kill _him if they can. And he'd _let_ them. He doesn't deserve that._

Father paused in the lantern light spilling from the front door of the house. He looked back at Cullen, and saw that he meant it. Something changed in Father's face, and then Father hugged him, hard. Like Branson, he smelled like smoke. And he'd sweated right through his shirt.

_He's scared too_, Cullen realized. And he felt better.

* * *

iii.

ONE WEEK LATER

"Cullen!" Cullen looked up to see Mia, red-faced and winded from running.

"Who?" he asked.

"Bran and the Templars! They're back, and they've brought a mage for Geoff, and he and one of the Templars are with Geoff right now, and the fever's gone already, and the mage says he help with the scarring, too, a little, and two more Templars are on their way up here for Matthias!"

Cullen stood up and grabbed his staff, by Mistress Selma's door. "Anyone else?" Matthias hadn't stepped a toe outside his house in the past week, and that was so much the better, Cullen thought. People had been jostling Mistress Selma in the market, refusing to sell her things. Mother said that Mistress Arienne had spat in her face the other day.

"Yes," Mia admitted, worried. "Lilah and Regan. Rolf, Sedge, and a few others. Some kids, just there for the fun of it. They want to see what happens."

"Won't they let him say goodbye to his mother and go without a hassle?" Cullen demanded, angry. "He didn't mean it. He hates himself as much as any of them hate him, or worse. I'm worried about him."

Mia closed her eyes. When she opened them, she ran a hand through his hair like she had when he was younger. "Cully," she sighed, playing on his name like she had sometimes done back then. "You and Father. You've put us square in the middle of this, you know. It won't die down when the Templars take Matthias away."

Cullen folded his arms. "I don't care. One of them threw a _rock_ through Selma's shutters two days ago. One big enough that it could have hurt somebody. I'd rather stand up with Father than let things like that just . . . happen."

"Even if it's a rock through our shutters next?" Mia asked.

"They wouldn't throw them at us," Cullen said, a little angry about it. "None of us are accidental mages. They'll forget they're angry at Father and I for keeping them from hurting Matthias once the Templars take him away."

Mia looked off down the hill. "I don't think they will, Cully," she murmured. "Forgive you—maybe. In a while. But they won't forget. There hasn't been a mage in Honnleath since Matthias's father died. And now this one's gone and blown someone's face off, without even meaning to. People are scared, and Father's made them keep what's scaring them here. So have you."

"What were we supposed to do?" Cullen demanded. "Let them run Matthias off? If he didn't lose control and hurt someone else in the fighting then, there'd be no guarantee he wouldn't hurt someone in some other town later. The only way he'll control it is if someone like the mage the Templars brought teaches him, in a Circle. It wouldn't be right to run him off when he could hurt someone else, just so we could feel better. And it wouldn't be right to let them kill him either. He _didn't mean it_. He's not a monster. He's just a boy, like me or Branson."

"Not like you." The door had opened quietly. Cullen looked over his shoulder and rolled his eyes. Matthias was like that, he'd found. But Mia had gone pale. She backed up a step when she saw him. Matthias looked at her, and something in that look tugged at Cullen's chest, because Matthias was right: he'd never seen another boy look like that. Like he was already a sad, old man. He was just a little older than Mia anyway. Seventeen. And he looked like a sad, old man. Matthias looked away from Mia then and down at Cullen. His lips twitched. He hadn't smiled all week. "My ears were burning," he explained. "They're coming?" he asked Mia.

Mia nodded, and tilted her head down the road. Cullen could hear them—footsteps coming up the hill. Voices. And a clink of armor. He didn't hear that every day.

Bran and the people in armor were in the lead—two of them, a man and woman in silverite plate, with the flaming sword of the Templars embossed on the breastplate. The man looked about Father's age—tall and lean, with a nose like a hawk, a cleanshaven face, brown hair receding from his forehead, and resolute black eyes. The woman was younger, maybe a little less than thirty, short and stocky, with blue eyes and freckles, a nose that looked like it had been broken once, and red hair cropped short enough to fit under a helmet. "You're Matthias?" she said in a clear Chanter's voice that Cullen liked at once.

"I'm Matthias."

Branson came and kissed Mia's cheek and clasped forearms with Cullen. He hadn't been home yet. He was still dusty from the road, and he looked tired, but pleased with himself too. "Kin of yours, Master Branson?" the male Templar asked. His voice was more nasal than the woman's, but not unkind.

"My elder sister Mia and my brother Cullen, Ser Wilbert," Branson confirmed. "We're neighbors of Matthias. This is Ser Wilbert and Ser Sarna from the Chantry."

"I can see the resemblance," Ser Sarna observed, smiling and shaking hands with Mia and Cullen. "Particularly between you and your sister. You're a bit fairer and stouter, Master Cullen."

The villagers with the Templars had stopped about fifteen meters from Matthias's house. "What are you doing?" Lilah, Geoff's sweetheart, called from where she led the small knot of villagers behind the Templars. She was a small girl of eighteen. She had neat, shiny brown hair and bright blue eyes that would have been pretty if they weren't always narrowed and her nose wasn't always wrinkled under them like she smelled something bad. "Get on with your duty, Templars! Take him away from here or string him up, but get him gone from us!"

Murmurs of agreement from the people with her. Sedge. Rolf. Even kids Cullen had played with by the lake and in the square. He bit his lip and tightened his grip on his staff. Ser Wilbert just closed his eyes and massaged his temples, like he had a headache.

"You are the mage who burned Geoff, son of Noll, last week in the local public house?" he asked Matthias. He kept his voice too quiet for the villagers to hear, hanging back like cowards, but Cullen frowned anyway. He didn't like the way the Templar had set up the question like Matthias had done it on purpose.

But Matthias didn't mention that. "I am."

Bran frowned too. Then Selma, Matthias's mother, stepped outside after him. Cullen felt sorry for her. He did. But after a week of more time spent at her house than he had ever spent before, he didn't like her any more than he had before all the trouble, and maybe a little less. She was a bony, sharp-tongued woman with limp, faded, yellow hair and sharp, dark eyes that didn't seem to match it, and almost insufferably clean. And while Cullen admitted that she had certainly had a miserable week and everyone had been treating her badly, in the whole seven days Bran had been gone—most of which Cullen had spent in or around her house—he had not heard her say a kind word to or about anyone.

"Templars," she said, without bothering to introduce herself. "If you're asking whether my son intended to shoot that fireball at Egan's son, I should think that would be rather obvious. Of course he didn't. Titus Rutherford, Widow Annis's daughter Nessa, and the couple of other people around here who aren't blighted liars will testify my son was caught off guard and provoked when he attacked the boy, and as surprised as what he unloosed as anyone else. Anyway, why would he use magic on Egan's son in front of half a dozen witnesses, knowing what that would mean, knowing it would mean leaving me alone, and when that little bastard and his companions had called him worse before than he got that night, and done violence on him too? My son is not an idiot."

"Titus Rutherford?" Ser Wilbert asked, curious. "That'd be your father, Master Branson? And yours, Mia and Cullen?"

"That's right, ser," Branson confirmed. "If one of the two of us takes the flock—" gesturing at Cullen— "he could come down here to meet you, if you'd like to speak to him."

"That won't be necessary, I don't think," Ser Sarna said, after a brief conferring glance with her companion. "He fought in Arl Eamon's yeoman ranks when Redcliffe threw off the Orlesians, didn't he?"

Mia was the one who answered. "Yes, he did. The arl remembered our father, sers?" Her eyes were bright.

Wilbert nodded. "Honored him as well, I believe—for leadership and valor in the final battles. The arl was in town when your brother came to the Chantry and mentioned it to us in passing."

"Father will be glad to hear Arl Eamon remembers him well," Branson managed. He looked taller. Cullen felt taller. The arl of all of Redcliffe remembered Father as a good man! A warrior!

"And none of you ever noticed anything odd about Matthias here?" Ser Sarna asked. "Noticed bad things happening when he was angry or scared before?"

Mia hesitated, looking sideways at Matthias. Wilbert looked at her. "It's very important that you tell the truth, girl."

"It's all right, Mia," Matthias told her. He was staring down at the ground, his arms by his sides.

Mia bit her lip. "That's it, though, Matthias—we didn't." She looked at Ser Sarna, who wasn't too much taller than she was and seemed the friendlier of the two Templars. "Sers—we all thought he was a liar when he said magic was in his family. It was only this past week our parents told us it was true. They never liked to talk about Mistress Selma or the late Mister Wilhelm, you see. We didn't know."

Matthias's face was a study in self-mockery and bitterness. Selma's was even worse. "Sure and they were glad enough for my husband to settle here after he helped King Maric save us all from the Orlesians," she muttered, "only to call my boy a liar when he tells the truth about his father's killer they keep in the center of town like artwork and the work Wilhelm did for all Ferelden." Her fists clenched and unclenched in her apron. Her eyes were bright and fierce and angry.

Wilbert looked grim. "We have been briefed on Wilhelm's . . . unique . . . situation," he said, pausing and glancing at Sarna again, who kept her face pleasant and blank. "The king, however, gave him dispensation to live apart from the Circles of Magic and start a family, if he could. Your son has no such writ. Mage—you seemed as though you felt this young woman should have known of your abilities. Were you yourself aware of them prior to the incident in the public house?"

That was a dangerous question, Cullen knew. If Matthias said yes, it meant he had known he was a mage and refused to surrender to the Circle. That would mean that he was an apostate, and the Templars could treat him that way. If he said no and later the Templars found out he had known after all, he could be in just as much trouble. Mia had said there was another Templar in Honnleath—the one with the mage healer they had brought to help Geoff. But it occurred to Cullen that if the mage they had brought was Circle-trained, he might not need much watching, and that other Templar could very well be asking other people in the village questions about Matthias, to compare notes with Wilbert and Sarna later.

Matthias was hesitating. "He didn't know!" Selma snapped. "Of course he didn't know! He would have told me, and we would have decided what to do—"

"Which would of course have been to turn him into the Circles of Magic for proper training and protection," Sarna said mildly. Cullen glanced at her. Her friendly, open expression hadn't changed, but there was a strength under her voice that hadn't been there before, like a hidden weapon, and it impressed him.

Selma heard it too, and her expression soured still further. "He's a good man," she protested. "Like his father was. He's capable of living outside the Circles just like Wilhelm was. I know the dangers of magic. Don't you tell me that I don't. But he's all the family I have, ser knight. We would've done what's proper. _I _can't train him. But excuse me if it would've been a bit of a wrench. Anyway, I'm not getting any younger."

Cullen didn't think Mistress Selma was lying, and neither did the Templars. They looked at Matthias's mother for another little while, then back to Matthias. "So, the townsfolk were not aware of your abilities and your mother was not either. Did _you_ suspect you were a mage?"

Matthias was still hesitating. "Mattes?" Mistress Selma asked, going pale.

Matthias swallowed. "I . . . did," he said. "I had noticed some . . . odd things." He looked at Mia and his mother awkwardly. "Strange dreams. Strange feelings, sometimes. Just since Solace or so." He too looked at Sarna, like he was trying to make her understand. "I hoped I was wrong. I hoped, if I just let it alone, it would go away. I didn't want to leave my mother. I'm all that she has. Of course, now . . . Maker, if I had it to do over." He closed his eyes. "I understand if I must be punished for my foolishness. Do what you will with me. I deserve it."

Mistress Selma grimaced. "You damned fool," she muttered, and reached out and squeezed Matthias around the shoulders.

"Oh, Matthias," Mia said. She seemed to have forgotten her earlier fear, and now Cullen remembered that when he was very little, three or four years old, and before Mia had really started working with Mother as much as she did now, she had used to play with Matthias, sometimes.

"Please, sers," he said, quietly, to the Templars. "Will you have to . . ." he trailed off, blushing. His voice had cracked. It happened more often now, especially when he was upset or nervous.

Sarna gave him a sort of wry, understanding smile, but Wilbert's attention was focused entirely on Matthias. "Matthias of Honnleath, in the name of the Maker and Andraste's Holy Chantry, I request and require you to accompany us to the Kinloch Hold Circle of Magic upon Lake Calenhad. The commander there will coordinate with the First Enchanter upon our arrival to determine what, if any punishment, you should be dealt for your actions here. Will you accompany us of your own free will?"

"I will."

"Then I see no need to bind you," Wilbert concluded. "I do not know what the Knight-Commander and the First Enchanter will decide, but for my part, I shall not consider you an apostate until you convince me otherwise. No one on or under the Maker's earth is perfect. Give me your hand."

Matthias looked at Mistress Selma. She scowled, but gestured that Matthias should do as the Templar asked. Matthias placed his hand in Ser Wilbert's extended left gauntlet. With his right hand, Ser Wilbert drew a small knife. He grasped it above the hilt, by the flat of the blade, like a pen, and sliced Matthias's finger with the point. Blood welled up, shocking and red. Matthias winced, but said nothing, and Ser Wilbert gave Matthias's hand to his companion, who squeezed a few drops of Matthias's blood into a small glass vial.

"Do you know what this is?" she asked. Matthias shook his head.

Sarna released his hand and stoppered the vial while her companion cleaned his knife and resheathed it in his belt. "This phylactery is your identification within the Circles of Magic. If you practice forbidden magic, or attempt to depart our custody—or the Circle once we arrive—without leave, your blood will help one of us to find you, wherever you are."

"We are showing you mercy today, mage." Wilbert told Matthias. "We believe there was no ill intent here, and indeed no use of forbidden magic as of yet—for which you should thank the Maker, for you are untrained and susceptible to demon wiles. All we have seen here points only to wretched poor judgment and a terrible accident. But should you prove less than innocent in the future, we will show you no mercy, nor will any of our comrades."

"I understand," Matthias said.

"Say goodbye to your mother," Sarna told him. She looked back over her shoulder at the watching villagers. "I think the sooner we leave this place, the better. You won't mind camping wild?"

"I've been ready to leave a few days now," Matthias answered.

"Is there anyone else you would like to bid farewell?" Sarna asked.

"There's no one," Matthias told her. "Except—" he turned to Cullen, Branson, and Mia. "If the three of you would bid goodbye to your father to me? He's been kind—far kinder than he had to be."

"We'll tell him," Mia promised. "Fare well, Mattes. I hope the Circle's good to you."

"Cullen?" Matthias stepped forward and clasped arms with Cullen. "You're a rare one," he said. "Like your father. I didn't deserve a friend like you this week."

Cullen shook his head. He didn't have words for how he felt. _Why does he have to be a mage?_ "Maker turn his gaze upon you," he murmured. Matthias gave him an odd look and a little half smile, then released his arm and turned back to his mother.

"Come on," Mia said. "We should go. Give them as much privacy as we can." She slung an arm around Cullen, and the two of them left with Bran, heading for home.

As they came in earshot of the watching villagers, Lilah, arms folded, jerked her chin at the three of them. "Well?" she demanded.

"They took him into custody, Lilah," Mia told her. "They'll take him to the Circle and decide what to do with him there."

"I don't see any chains!" Lilah cried. "Where are the shackles? He's a menace! I want him hung! He's an apostate!"

"Sets a fire in front of near a dozen witnesses, scars a young man beyond any hope of full recovery, and there's not to be any punishment?" Rolf muttered. "No justice?"

"Two young men were scarred in this business," a new voice said. Cullen turned to see another man in armor—tall—taller than Ser Wilbert, and even taller than Father. His dark hair and neat beard were streaked with silver, and his gray eyes were serious and steady. "But hopefully not beyond recovery."

Then Cullen saw the man beside the new Templar—much smaller than the Templar. An elf, actually, with bushy, light brown hair a little like a fox's and strange, iridescent emerald eyes. Cullen stared. He had never seen an elf before. The Dalish didn't come to Honnleath, and there were no alienages here. And the elf wore the robes of a real-life Circle mage and carried a staff. It could have been like Cullen's own, but it was made of two different kinds of wood. Ash, like his, but also walnut, twisted together in a way that was only possible through the utmost craft—or through magic. And at the top of the staff, there was a clear, colorless crystal that glowed with a soft light.

At the top of the hill, Matthias caught sight of the newcomers. He squeezed his mother's shoulder, finished with whatever it was he'd said to her. It was hard to tell from this distance, but Cullen thought her hard face had crumpled. Was she actually weeping? As Matthias left her to come down and join them, the Templars moving after him, she turned away and went back into the house, closing the door behind her.

The villagers hissed and edged away as Matthias approached, bristling with fear and anger. He ignored them, focused entirely on the mage. "How is he?" he asked the elf.

The elf sighed. He seemed tired, even drained. Could magic do that, Cullen wondered? Wear a person out just like other exercise? "I couldn't do away with all the scarring, lad," he said, in a strangely accented voice. "But he'll live, and more: he'll have full feeling and functionality in a few days' time. Wonder enough, I should think. You really let loose on him."

Matthias closed his eyes. He took in a few deep breaths. "Thank you," he said finally.

"Oh, _thank you_, _thank you_," Lilah said, bitterly, mockingly. "Geoff will never be the same, wonder enough he didn't die, but _thank you_, for saving him from _that_. As if you care at all, you—" she couldn't finish. Her eyes filled with tears, and she dashed them away and spat, like Mistress Arienne had at Selma the other day, right in Matthias's face. "Get him out of my sight," she hissed at the Templars. "Before I do what you don't have the guts to."

Matthias didn't even move to wipe his face. "Very well, mistress," said the dark-haired Templar, who seemed to be in charge. "We'll take young Matthias away with us—as much for his protection as for yours."

Disgusted, Lilah broke away from the rest of the villagers and started walking back to town. The Templars and Circle mage waited a moment, until they would not necessarily be in step with the villagers, and then started after them with Matthias. Their mounts would be tied up in the square.

"Come on," Mia said again, heading in another direction, toward home. Branson went after her, but Cullen pulled away from his sister's arm.

"Just a minute," he said. He jogged a few steps after the Templars. "Ser Sarna, Ser Wilbert!" he called. "Ser—I don't know your name," he said to the third Templar.

"Eoghan," the dark-haired Templar told him. "You're Titus Rutherford's younger son, Cullen? Master Branson's brother?"

"Yes, ser," Cullen confirmed.

His confusion at how Ser Eoghan had known this must have showed on his face—Matthias and the other Templars hadn't had a chance to say anything about Cullen to Ser Eoghan, and why would they? But Ser Eoghan smiled down at him. "They've been talking in the town, lad," he explained. "It seems you've been doing our job for us this week, when your father couldn't."

"It was nothing," Cullen said, instinctively. "Sers—about that, though. Your jobs. Are you recruiting? Do you need—could you need someone—someone like me?"

Ser Eoghan looked at his companions. The elven mage smiled—a small, bittersweet sort of smile that Cullen didn't quite understand. Cullen frowned at him, then looked back up at Ser Eoghan, heart in his throat.

Ser Wilbert seemed thoughtful. "I don't like recruiting children from families that need them, but young Cullen's a second son. He is uneducated, most likely, but that can be amended."

"I like the look of him, Eoghan," Sarna said suddenly. "I did the moment I met him. Branson fetched us under the law, and because he was bade to, but—" she looked at Cullen, sharply. "It was your idea to help your father guard Matthias this week, wasn't it?"

"I—Father had to sleep sometime," Cullen stammered. His voice cracked again. "And guard the sheep. There've been predators. And I wasn't sure anyone else would do it."

The mage laughed softly, shaking his head. "You couldn't get a better recruit if you prayed to the Maker for weeks, Ser Templar, and probably not even then." There was sarcasm in his voice, and the same bitterness Cullen had seen in his smile, but there was respect too.

"He's a good lad," Sarna agreed. "I'd swear to it."

Ser Eoghan hummed. "I'm inclined to believe you, Sarna. Cullen Rutherford, the Templars very well might need someone like you. The Chantry is always in need of good lads and lasses with strong arms and a heart for the Maker. Not yet," he cautioned, as, joyous, Cullen opened his mouth to thank Ser Eoghan and offer to pack right away. "We need to take Matthias here to the Circle. The task merits all our focus, and you'll need time to speak with your family and decide if this is truly what you want. And you're young yet. But if, in a few years, you wish to join us?" He smiled. "Send word, and I'll escort you to Edgehall for training myself."

He extended his hand, and Cullen took it, feeling touched by the Maker himself. He beamed as the Templars led Matthias and the other mage away.

Protecting mages like Matthias—from their own terrible power and from the people who would hurt them for it. Now _that_ was something worth doing. Sedge glared at him as he skipped home, too satisfied and happy to walk. In the eyes of one of the neighbors his family had always considered a friend, Cullen saw that Mia had been right. The rest of town wouldn't easily forgive him for what he'd done this week. It didn't matter. He knew he'd done the right thing, and now he knew more than that too. Cullen lifted his head and stared right back at his neighbor—and saw Sedge look away, ashamed.

* * *

**A/N: Wow, this turned into a monster. My best friend doesn't read these, but I need to thank her anyway. It's her influence that made me consider having Matthias's manifestation as a mage be the catalyst that helps young Cullen decide to become a Templar (because unless Wilhelm was dabbling in blood magic and let Matthias into his experiments as a very young child, Matthias has to be some kind of mage). And the character I consider to be one of the most boring at this particular point in his development ends up with one of the most interesting anecdotes. We'll see a few sides of the Templar Order, but Cullen's a good guy, and he joins the Templars for noble reasons, so his first impression of the Order had to be a noble one. And, of course, Matthias's experience is another illustration of the dangers mages face both inside and outside of themselves. I do think his mother ends up being right. Not all mages live in the Circle. Some receive special permission to live outside of it, and adult Matthias seems to be a respected member of Honnleath again, despite his magic, and a law-abiding citizen. So I imagine that he received training for some years in the Circle and then was released, like his father, to live quietly as an ordinary citizen. That's the Matthias you can meet in the **_**Stone Prisoner**_** DLC of **_**Origins**_**. **

**I couldn't help the minor teasing here. Honnleath is a **_**very**_** small town, which, ironically, is why Cullen's chapters end up having a larger cast—it's the kind of place where everyone knows everyone. And Mia is a little nice and mature to like most of the other guys her own age. But I do not ship endgame Mia/Matthias. Mia is **_**not **_**Amelia's mother (though hello, name similarity! Maybe Matthias had a bigger thing for Cullen's sister than I thought), and Amelia is not Cullen's niece. In fact, I imagine that Mia married someone else before Matthias returned to Honnleath. I just thought that, due to my envisioned ages for the characters, Mia probably knew Matthias a bit better than Cullen did. **

**Leave a review if you've got something to say,**

**LMS**


	3. Leto: Teacher's Pet

**Characters: **Leto, OMC Arin, OMC Domitian, OMC Litius, OFC Catar, mention of OMC Bellisti and OMC Corolanus, various unnamed OMCs and OFCs.

**Pairings:** None

**AU Elements: **This may not be actually AU, as it's established Danarius is a liar, but young Leto lived in Ventus, across the channel from Seheron and not actually on it.

* * *

**9:17 Dragon**

**Carastes, The Tevinter Imperium**

Leto leapt over Arin's blade. He felt the air whistle beneath the soles of his bare feet. He landed squarely on his left leg, perfectly balanced, and as Arin was still moving with the force of the follow-through of his useless stroke, chained to the momentum, Leto kicked out with his right foot—through Arin's chest and not at it. The blow connected, and Arin gasped. Choked. Fell back, though he didn't drop his sword. This time.

But Leto was already pressing his advantage. Spinning away on his left leg so his body would no longer be where Arin expected, Leto swung up his own sword. They had moved from leaded wooden weapons to blunted steel a month ago, but the steel blades could break bone as easily as the wooden ones, and separate joints and tendons besides. No need to cause any more damage than necessary.

Leto hit Arin's elbow with the flat of his blade, sending a painful, ringing vibration up through his forearm and into his hand. With a cry, Arin released his sword with that hand. Since Arin was one of the idiots here—boys who chose swords from the armory that were too big for them out of either fear or some misguided attempt to look impressive—he couldn't hold his greatsword with only the single hand. He dropped it. Leto grinned, darted forward, and with a pointed foot, kicked the sword away and hit Arin in the chest where he had kicked him with the pommel of his own sword. Arin fell back again. This time he did not rise. Leto had rotated his sword, and Arin was staring cross-eyed down the blade.

"Yield."

Arin glared up at Leto. Swallowed. "I yield," he ground out.

Slow, lazy applause broke out behind the two of them from the men standing at the edge of the training ground. Leto let his sword fall to the dirt and reached out to Arin. The older boy did not take his hand but staggered to his feet on his own. Leto regarded him a moment, then wiped his hand on his trousers and turned to face Master Domitian, master of the Carastes gymnasium and overseer of everything any of them learned. He was pleased, Leto saw. But it was the opinion of his visitors that mattered—Magister Litius; his mistress, the Lady Catar; and a collection of nobles and attendants Leto didn't know from Minrathous.

"A fine spectacle, Domitian," the magister was saying. "Though I'm not sure whether to congratulate you on the quality of your younger pupil or wonder at the clumsiness of the elder."

"Don't blame the elder boy, Lit," Catar laughed. "He did his best. Few are the fighters indeed, I think, that could stand before the prowess of this young elf. What is your name, boy?"

Beside Leto, Arin scowled in shame. He was breathing with difficulty, and his hands twitched at his sides—either to curl into fists or to touch his injured chest. Leto didn't know. He bowed at Lady Catar. "Leto, my lady."

She regarded him. "From Seheron?" she guessed, judging by his accent.

"Ventus, my lady."

"But you've seen incursions of the bull-men before?"

Leto smiled slightly. When he was younger, he would probably have corrected her. Now he knew enough to recognize that the lady had made up her own story about him and where he came from in her head. She wouldn't enjoy having it contradicted. She wanted to believe she had known all about him in a glance.

So, careful not to lie, he said simply, "I have seen what the Qunari do, my lady." She would believe it was confirmation he had experience in combat without realizing he had not actually said so.

"There, you see, Lit?" the lady told her lover, gesturing at Arin. "This poor boy couldn't possibly hope to win against a veteran like his opponent."

"Leto and Arin are both distinguished soldiers here," Master Domitian said. "Of course, we strive to maintain the highest training standards for all our pupils, magister. These soldiers are trained not only in the broadsword but in spear-fighting, and all must also learn either the longbow or the crossbow as well. They learn formations, how to use and maintain siege weaponry, and, through various war games, to respond to a number of different tactics in combat. If you'll proceed along with me, we can demonstrate other techniques for you."

"Very well," said the magister. But before he followed the master on through the training yard, he flipped a coin in Leto's direction. Leto caught it in the air—an entire gold piece! "For an afternoon's entertainment," the magister said dismissively, already turning away.

Leto stared at the gold piece, heedless of Arin's scowling. He polished its surface with his thumb and moved it to catch the sunlight. His fingers closed over it, and his mind raced, already imagining the things he could do with an entire gold piece. _I could send a hundred messengers. Maybe even hire a horse to ride to Ventus myself!_

* * *

LATER

Traditionally, the master could choose any soldier past their first year at the gymnasium to attend him at supper. In Leto's first year, Master Domitian had selected a different boy almost every night, it seemed—along with the occasional girl, for while the Imperium didn't often purchase girls for the army and most parents chose not to send their daughters, girls were hardly forbidden from the gymnasium. The master talked a little with each soldier who attended him, offering personal instruction, praise, or reprimands as he thought necessary. Other instructors and the rotating officers could choose attendants in a similar way, as all of them were meant to learn humility and submission to orders. But it was a bigger honor to be selected by the master.

At the beginning of this year, Master Domitian had initially kept to the pattern Leto had observed in his first. But as time had gone on, he called on Leto more frequently, until it seemed that Leto had attended the master once a month for the past six—just frequently enough that Leto and everyone else had noticed. The master had never offered an explanation for the additional attention. Leto suspected the simplest explanation was that he was one of the only soldiers in the gymnasium with training as an attendant and that the training made a nice change for the master.

Leto had never been uneasy around Master Domitian; he was quiet and expected the best from every soldier, but he was popular among the soldiers as a man who was gentle enough in and of himself, and he was happily married to a woman in the city and talked fondly of her and of their five children. And so Leto was happy enough, nights he waited on the master, to accompany him back to the study or the war room and talk with him, as he liked, about this or that, and take what messages he was assigned to the people to whom the master wanted them delivered. Message delivery made for a nice change for him; it almost always meant a class away the next morning, and occasionally a change of scenery via a ride through the city or even to another town.

And there were other benefits.

"_Magister Litius was pleased with the demonstration you and Arin gave this morning." _Master Domitian told him as they walked together down the hall after supper. It took Leto a moment to translate in his head. He had first begun picking up phrases in the trader's tongue as Bellisti's page, when Bellisti had met with merchant partners for the farm. When the instructors here had learned Leto knew a few words, Master Domitian had set him to practice it, as mastery of what other nations called the common tongue could only aid in shipments from smuggling or the setup of multilateral operations. It was a harsher language than Tevene, clipped and inconsistent. The ancient dwarves and the Fereldan barbarians used harder consonants than Leto was used to and elongated their vowels in odd ways. He didn't always enjoy the way it sounded, but he did like the way the words felt in his mouth.

"_I fight as I've been taught," _Leto answered.

"_And speak as you've been taught, and well,"_ Domitian complimented him. _"But you do not always do as you've been taught, do you? The magister gave you something after your bout with Arin. What was it?"_

Leto went cold inside and tried not to feel angry. He removed his glove and fished the gold coin out of it. He handed it up to the master without another word. _"Does what is given to you belong to you, Leto?" _Domitian asked.

"_No." _

"No," Domitian agreed, switching to Tevene once again. He turned into the war room, a wood-paneled room lined with small maps and messages, with a larger, three-dimensional map of the Northern Imperium and Seheron on a table in the center. "You are the property of the Imperium. What is given you belongs to the Imperium. Your skill brings you honor, and honor to this gymnasium. But don't forget your place."

Leto bowed. "No, master." He felt the wild hopes that had sprung into his mind when the magister had given him the coin draining away.

"Soldier, you get a Rest Day every fortnight and a half day to yourself every season—but it would take you at least six days' round trip to get to Ventus and back," Domitian said, not unkindly. "This coin would buy you passage or the time away from the gymnasium. But not both." He walked over to a desk in the corner of the room. "Now. I have a message for you to deliver to General Corolanus on the _Felicitis_, down at the port." He handed Leto a weatherproofed cylindrical receptacle. Inside, under seal, would be the message. "Your instructors are aware you'll be taking it and are to wait for a reply; you're excused for tomorrow morning."

He walked back over to the map on the table. Leto remained where he was. He hadn't been dismissed.

Sure enough, Domitian clasped his hands behind his back in a pose very like the one Leto had used to stand in to wait on Bellisti—parade rest, they called it here—and spoke again, jerking his head at the map. "The general's asked for a complement of two hundred soldiers for an offensive on Alam," Domitian told him. Leto walked over to the map, looking at it. "Just there, on the south side of the island."

Leto saw the place Master Domitian meant—the symbol of a town set away in the mountains west-by-southwest of the port city of Seheron. "No access by sea?" he asked.

Domitian smiled. "No. The city is built where a mountain river intersects with some natural springs. Protected, both by cliffs and the jungle, but because there is no easy naval approach, somewhat less heavily defended than Seheron itself. _Tell me, Leto, what sort of soldiers should I send to the general, and what equipment?_"

Leto blinked. Domitian had begun speaking in a still different language—not the trader's tongue, but Qunlat. It had been slang in Ventus, something the children had spoken on Rest Days when they felt like rebellion. Verania had used to smack him when she caught him at it, but here again, the instructors had been very pleased to find he knew the basics, and worked him harder on this language than the other. With Qunlat, it was less the form of the words and more its structure that Leto found difficult. The Qunari had, it seemed, hundreds of words for "thing," each with its own separate kind of meaning. The genders of words were odd and didn't always match their counterparts in Tevene—though things were better in Qunlat than in the trader's tongue in this regard, as the trader's tongue had no genders at all. But Qunlat had very few singular forms, or constructions for singular actions.

He swallowed. _"There is no need for big weapons,"_ he said, carefully, grimacing at his accent and limited vocabulary, but Domitian stood quiet, listening. _"The high mountains_—the cliffs—_make it hard to carry them. No deep-water port—so . . . boats. Small. Too small. Hard to take mounts also. Instead—soldiers who can climb. Rope. Supports. Range weapons. Bows and stronger bows. Better for fighting in the jungle. The soldiers can hide. Armor to help them hide. Medicines. Soldiers get sick in the jungle."_

"_Good_," Domitian told him. "Your analysis is sound, but work on your vocabulary. Syntax as well. If we sent you to war right now, your superior could trust you to interpret the words of a captured Qunari back to him, but he might have some difficulty ordering you to convey a message back to the captive." Domitian smiled. "So. If you were the general, how would you deploy the complement I will send to him next summer to go to Alam?"

Leto shook his head. "I would have to see a better map, my lord," he said, reverting to Tevene with some relief. "Talk with someone who lived locally. A spy, maybe. Plot where the Qunari were defended against an attack and learn why they expected it there in order to determine if an attack from another direction was even possible—or possible from multiple directions. But I do not think anything like this is ever very likely to be my decision."

Domitian had been staring at the little symbol for Alam on the table. Now he looked back up at Leto. He regarded him for a moment. "No," he said finally. "You're hardly ever likely to be a General Corolanus. One of the scouts who gives him the information he needs to make decisions such as this one—perhaps. Perhaps." He sounded thoughtful. "You may go," he said then, crisply.

Leto bowed and left. He didn't quite get Domitian's tone toward the end of their interview. _Like as not, I'll understand when I need to. _He reviewed the Qunlat words he knew in his mind, positioning them in different places in imaginary sentences, trying to remember the ways they changed. He hated making mistakes, but more than that, he had seen how capability as an interpreter helped soldiers. There were instructors at the gymnasium that were twenty-three and twenty-five and had gone to battle four or five times each, and kept back from the worst of the fighting because of their value as interpreters to their respective commanders. Leto had never forgotten the boys he had seen in his journey here two years before, and he had seen many more on messenger journeys since.

"Get him!"

It was the first warning Leto had: a boy's voice just around the corner from the barracks, in the shadow of the stables. Five lesser shadows converged on him, darting out from the doorway and dropping down from the stable roof. There were two humans and three other elves, all older, taller than he was—fifteen or sixteen.

Instantly, Leto dropped to the ground, falling beneath the flying fists and grasping hands. He swept his leg around, knocking three boys off balance so they fell to the ground as he did so.

"Son of a whore!"

"Boot-licking teacher's pet!"

His attackers hurled these and other, worse insults Leto had never heard until he entered the soldiers' barracks at him. They burned in his throat, chest, and gut and ground like gravel into his ears. Leto let them burn and grind and ignored them. He focused instead on the hands reaching for him, on his breathing, and on the movements of his body as he twisted, dodged, ducked, and struck. He'd found early on that the opponents who wasted time insulting him were usually the weaker ones—in body or in mind. It didn't matter. And when he didn't respond in kind, he almost always gained an advantage. His silence scared them. It was unusual. Anyway, the boasters were lazy. They relied on words to read an enemy and couldn't assess him when he was quiet.

Leto didn't bother with many of the fine techniques he had learned. When the fight was five against one, all that mattered was staying conscious. There was no time for precision, and there was no time for mercy. So Leto wasn't merciful. He didn't fight gently, and he didn't fight fair. He fought hard, and brutally—with everything he had: elbows, knees, heels, teeth, and nails.

When it was over, he was gasping. His lip was swollen and bleeding, one of his ears was ringing, and he was clutching a side in an agony of pain. He guessed one, maybe two of his ribs were broken. But he was standing, and only one of the other boys was. Another was kneeling, and the other three were on the ground—conscious, alive, but curled up in a lot worse shape than he was. In the moonlight, Leto saw eyes swollen shut, clawed faces, torn ears. One dislocated arm. Several missing teeth.

He felt cold. He felt sick, and not entirely because of the pain. But he stayed standing, glaring at the sole boy standing—Arin, the boy he had fought earlier today. "_Vashedan_! Am I your enemy?" He ran his free hand through his hair. "_Venhedis_! I—I—"

Arin spat blood at his feet. Winced. "Don't . . . don't tell me . . . you're my . . . friend. Not after this! Knife-eared bastard . . ."

"This! You attacked me! I—we're all soldiers!"

"Soldiers and soldiers . . . aren't there?" grunted the boy on his knees. "We're sick of you, Leto. All the breaks you get . . . nobody from nowhere . . . pretty fancy boy . . . you're making all of us look like fools!" He fell forward, caught himself on both hands, groaned, pushed himself back up, and pulled one of the others to his knees as well.

Leto shook his head, disgusted. "You do that yourself! It's not my fault you're _stupid_! I could help you, if you wanted. But you're too busy obsessing about me 'beating you' to _ask_ me! Andraste's blood! We have to fight together one day! We'll be all we have. I don't want to have to kill you _and_ the Qunari!" He winced. Grimaced. Caught Arin's eyes, shining in the torchlight by the stable door. "You were using a sword too heavy for you in that bout today. That's how I won. I can help you find a better one in the armory. Show you a couple of moves."

Arin stared at him for a long moment. But he was too proud, Leto saw. Arin spat again, bitterly. "What's the point?" He shook his head. Tears leaked out of his eyes. "Kill us . . . or kill . . . the Qunari. Like it will be . . . your choice. We're all . . . going to die on some Karasaad's spear."

Leto folded his arms, as much to provide better support for his ribs as to express stubbornness. "_Vashedan_," he swore again. "_You've_ just given up! _That_ remains to be seen." His fingers curled around the master's message scroll, still in its weatherproofed delivery tube in his dirtied and bloodied uniform jacket. He stared at the five boys who had attacked him, assessing whether any of them would attack him again. The last two had climbed up onto their knees too, and one was standing, but he saw the defeat in Arin's words all over their faces, and it just made him angrier. They were humiliated. Furious. But afraid. Beaten. By him, yes. He guessed three of them might go to the infirmary after this—he might go too, tomorrow, early, before anyone else got up and before he ran his errand. But beaten by the Qunari too, before any of them had ever been dispatched. It just made Leto angrier.

He started staggering past them, shouldering through them when he had to, without bothering to be gentle. Three more of them spat at him. "Remains to be seen for _you_, maybe," someone muttered. Not a deliberate taunt this time. A compliment. But said with as much venom as any of the curses they had hurled at him earlier, it burned and ground at Leto as badly as the curses had done. He lifted a hand and wiped blood from his chin.

_Fine. I'll see then. Without you. You can go to your deaths, if you're stupid, proud, and beaten to do so. I will not. I am going to live._

* * *

**A/N: I know I've been updating these every Wednesday, but yesterday was Christmas so I didn't. But I do still have something for you guys this week. **

**To continue in my vein of acknowledging my influences where appropriate, Domitian, head of the Carastes gymnasium and in charge of training for Leto's division of the regular infantry in the war against the Qunari, was somewhat inspired by Quintus Arrius, a character in Lew Wallace's 1880 novel, _Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. _One of the bestsellers of American history, _Ben-Hur_ was once one of two books settlers were likely to have on the frontier, the other being the Bible. It's been adapted numerous times to the screen, but the adaptations, to my mind, never match the original for depth and effect, and especially for meaning. It's an old favorite of mine, and Arrius is a good example of a character, who, in another society, might have been a very good man, but who is nonetheless an undeniable product of a culture he has only the vaguest idea is corrupt and evil. My Domitian is not naturally as demonstrative as Arrius, will not have Arrius's reasons for generosity and so will not stir quite as far as Arrius does for his own protégé. But when Domitian looks at the most promising young slave-soldier in his academy, I imagine he has very similar thoughts to when Quintus Arrius sees and speaks to the galley slave Judah Ben-Hur before developments put him in Judah's debt.**

**On another note, I'd like to thank those of you who have been leaving reviews. It's a huge encouragement to me, and really interesting to see the different ways you are each engaging with these characters and the fics they appear in. **

**Wishing you all a Happy New Year, **

**LMSharp**


	4. Gwyn: Truancy and Character Building

**Characters: **F!Cousland (Gwyn), own male pony character Rialis, Bryce Cousland, own mare character Noorin, Mallol, Fergus Cousland, William Cousland, Aldous, Eleanor Cousland

**Pairings: **Bryce/Eleanor Cousland

**AU Elements: **The history of the Cousland family for the majority of the Blessed Age I use here is almost entirely my creation. I have fabricated several members of the extended family and a fairly convoluted line of succession from Teyrn Ardal Cousland (canonically d. Battle of Lothering defending Vanedrin Therin from the Orlesians) to Teyrn William Cousland, father to _DA:O_'s Bryce and grandfather of Fergus Cousland and PC Cousland. This history is not spelled out in these stories but does lie behind them, and was created to give depth to the family, to make up for the fact that I found a seventyish Arl William fathering Bryce creepy, and to allow for William Cousland to survive through at least a portion of Cousland's youth. As such, William is also teyrn during this story, and Bryce is teyrn-in-waiting.

* * *

**9:18 Dragon**

**Castle Cousland, the Teyrnir of Highever, Ferelden**

The first fierce winds of spring whipped Gwyn's brown hair out of her braid and across her face, even as she slowed Rialis to a trot. She moved her entire body with his, feeling his warm, plump, comfortable flanks underneath her. Sometimes when they rode like this, she didn't even feel like they were separate animals, just one strange, wild pony-girl monster.

The wood was singing behind her. She knew it wasn't, really, but it sounded like it, in a spring wind up on the ridge above Castle Cousland. She wondered if mages in the Fade could understand it, or if the ancient elves of Arlathan had known the words. She didn't care. She hummed the tune that sounded in her head to herself. Then that wasn't good enough. She shouted it, screamed it over the ridge and over the fields of wildflowers, out into the clear blue sky. She punched both fists up into the air, and Rialis threw his head back and shrieked the challenge too, moving at the urging of her knees into a headlong gallop again down the valley, full of the joy just of _running_, of the springtime.

Then Gwyn saw the other rider. She stopped smiling. She loosened her knees, sat back on the simple blanket she had thrown over Rialis instead of his saddle, and tried to rake her hair back into some kind of order with her fingers.

_That would work. _Her stupid, awful hair wouldn't lie flat or curl, even on a day when she hadn't been galloping with Rialis. It just grew everywhere, in every direction, without even being an interesting color to make up for all the trouble it gave her. She tugged at her old stained play tunic, trying to make it settle lower on her legs. That didn't do any good either. Gwyn scowled, then lifted her chin as Father closed the gap on Noorin.

He didn't say anything, but she wouldn't say anything until he did. She massaged Rialis's dappled gray neck and smelled his honest, horse-sweat smell, and waited for her punishment. She wouldn't make any excuses. Father wouldn't believe her even if she did, and she'd been caught, fair and square. For dodging and worrying Mother again, it would probably be another lecture on filial piety from Sister Mallol in the chapel. It wouldn't take more than an hour, but it would feel like four at least, and then she would have to make a public apology at supper to mother and ignore any teasing from Fergus. She wouldn't get dessert afterward, and then Nan would rub her down with horrible-smelling medicine so she didn't get a cold. Nan wouldn't be gentle about it, either, and she would scold the entire time.

_I don't care, I don't care. It was worth it. If I sew one more row of embroidery, I'll go mad. I will. _

Finally, Father spoke. "If your mother had seen you galloping down the ridge that way, she would have had a fit of the vapors. As fearless as she is on the deck of a ship, she's never quite taken to horses. You had us worried, Gwyn. One more circle of the grounds, and I would have had the guard out looking for you. Would you like to explain yourself?"

His calm tone made Gwyn feel all hot and knotted inside. _That's your conscience, my lady,_ Sister Mallol seemed to say inside her head. _If you'd done nothing to be ashamed of, you would not feel ashamed. _She looked down, twisting her tunic hem in both hands. Rialis could feel she was upset. He whickered and shifted from hoof to hoof, but Gwyn didn't feel any better. "It was too nice a day to spend embroidering and practicing etiquette," she mumbled. "I don't mind lessons with Aldous. I like reading and figuring and history. Even Orlesian, though it sounds funny. But—" she broke off and blinked, hard.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. As happy as she had been just a second ago, now she felt terrible. "I know it was wrong to run away like this, even for a little while. I love Mother, but I—I don't know what the _point_ of all these things _she_ wants to teach me is." Gwyn looked up at Father, frustrated. "She keeps saying I need to be a lady, but what does needlepoint and etiquette and playing the lyre have to do with _that_? Wouldn't it be better if—" she swallowed, but Father was listening, and so she forged ahead. "Wouldn't it be better if I went to town with you and Fergus instead? The people won't care if I'm _pretty_ and _nice_ as long as they're happy and well-ruled, right?"

"So you ran away from being _pretty _and _nice_ to be a wild barbarian banshee for the morning instead," Father said. Gwyn stared at him, nervous, but his mouth was twitching. He was laughing at her. He wasn't _really_ angry; she could see he wasn't. Gwyn smiled up at him, hesitantly.

But in a moment, he was serious again. "Highever might not care for pretty and nice, Gwyn, but believe it or not, you may find that the other noblemen and noblewomen Highever does business with care very much for the skills your mother has to teach you. And good relations with them are important if we are to keep trade running and maintain the peace. But suppose even they do not care. Your future husband might."

Gwyn wrinkled her nose at the prospect. She reined Rialis around to turn away. "I don't know why I have to get _married_ and _leave_," she complained. "Can't I just stay and help Grandfather here? Or you and Fergus, when the two of you become teyrns? Aldous and Grandfather say that Great Aunt Mariel never married. She devoted her life to fighting at Cousin Elliot's side."

Father looked at her for a long moment. Then he stepped Noorin close, reached out, and tucked some of her hair behind her ear. "My aunt Mariel was also thirty-three years old when she died," he said. "I never knew her, though she did practically raise your grandfather, and he does indeed always speak highly of her. That was a different time, thank the Maker."

Gwyn didn't understand. Thirty-three seemed ancient. Not as old as Grandfather, but Father was talking about it like Great Aunt Mariel had been too young when she died _for_ her to have devoted her entire life to Teyrn Elliot. She blinked at Father, and he sighed. "Come along, pup. Let us return home before your mother really does send out the guard. I'll speak with her and your grandfather, and we'll determine what to do with you then."

Gwyn sighed too, and urged Rialis into step with Noorin, toward the castle. "Shall I report to Sister Mallol then?"

Father glanced at her. "Do you think you need to hear the sermon you would read you?"

Gwyn made a face. "I probably deserve one—"

"Probably."

"Do I have to, though?" Gwyn asked. "I _know_ what she would tell me, and I _know_ riding out like this was wrong, like I said. I am sorry . . . _now_," she couldn't help adding under her breath.

"Oh, now that the girl has been caught, she expresses penitence, but she would thank us kindly if she did not have to do just penance." Father teased her, but he sounded serious underneath. "Still, I see little use in having Sister Mallol read you a sermon you know the substance of. Rather, I think perhaps this time, you should explain to _her_ why what you did today was wrong, why you nevertheless gave into this wrong impulse, and how you intend to strengthen yourself against similar impulses in the future."

Gwyn stared at Father. It sounded too easy, and she was suspicious. She could just go in and repeat to Sister Mallol what she had been told about her duty to her parents and how righteousness pleased the Maker, then something about the weakness and perversity of created beings, and then promise to be better in the future. "That's _really_ what you think I should do?" she asked.

"Of course, Sister Mallol is perfectly free to hold you until she is satisfied with both your explanation of your wrongdoing and your plan to resist temptation moving forward," Father said mildly, "and you may tell her so from me. Your mother and I will also look forward to hearing your plan at supper tonight, after your apology."

"I knew that was coming," Gwyn sighed. She rode through the gates of Castle Cousland beside Father glumly. The sound of Rialis's hooves on stone instead of grass sounded like a door shutting, even with the gates still open.

"See to your pony before you report to Mallol, pup," Father reminded her. "You've given him quite the ride, it looks like, and you know his care is your responsibility."

Gwyn glared at him. "I haven't forgotten since the first time, Father!" The memory of the thrashing the hostler had given her that day, with Father and Grandfather's complete approval, still stung, almost a year later. She had been much smaller then, but as Sewall had held her fast, Grandfather had said, _If you think you are helpless now, your creatures are even more so. They depend on you to feed and care for them. Their lives are in your hands, and if you fail to respect that and handle them gently and with responsibility, you are undeserving of any greater charge. _

She remembered that sometimes even when she wasn't bringing Rialis in after a ride.

Father looked at her. "Good girl," he said then. "On with you." He dismounted as she did, and led Noorin down to her own box for her own care.

* * *

LATER

". . . and for the next month, Sister Mallol agrees it would be a good idea for me to come to the chapel and spend some time with her every day—not on boring old—" Gwyn broke off and looked down the hall guiltily at Sister Mallol. "—memorizing the Chant itself, anyway. She thinks reciting parts of the Canticles of Benedictions, Exaltations, and Trials might help me in 'moments of temptation.'"

The black-haired, red-cheeked resident Chantry sister raised a thin eyebrow at Gwyn, silently accusing her of what she had almost said.

_I don't care_, Gwyn thought. _The sermons from Grand Cleric This and Divine That XV _are_ boring, and she has one for _everything_. And they're almost all Orlesian, too, even though Andraste was Fereldan. The Chant's a lot nicer than more of those, anyway, and it could be fun to start saying the Chant before Fergus can chime in on rest days. _

She did realize that she had made herself a worse punishment than anything Mother, Father, or Grandfather had made for her before. Father had been clever. And sneaky. But at least she didn't feel guilty anymore. And memorizing the Chant would be more fun than lessons with Mother, anyway, and any time she got frustrated with Mother's lessons, she could think about the Chant instead. That would be nice.

Fergus was snickering from behind his hands at her, though. She would have to do something about that later. She couldn't just let him get away with it. She gave him a big, fake smile, and he waved at her from where he sat beside Father, a mocking, teasing kind of wave. Gwyn just smiled wider. _If I had a sister instead, or if I were an only child . . . I'll get him later. Or let _them_ get him. He's bad more often than _I_ am. _

Gwyn dropped a curtsey to Father and Grandfather, finished. She waited for the response. Grandfather's eyes were twinkling, like Father's had in the fields today. He wasn't angry any more than Father had been. Sometimes it was exhausting, Gwyn thought, giving apologies and being punished when no one was really angry with her. Mother said it was the right thing to do, though, and that she'd be grateful when she was older. Gwyn sometimes thought she would have to get a _lot _older.

"Meditating on the Chant of Light can only help you with your patience, child, and I am glad you have undertaken to do so," Grandfather said, "but perhaps we need not try that patience as strenuously as we have been doing, hmm? I was speaking with your father earlier, and he told me of your concerns with your current curriculum."

Gwyn looked at Father, completely caught off guard. She had not expected this! She gripped her tunic with both hands and looked back at Grandfather, a sudden rush of hope going through her. What did he mean?

"Aldous," Grandfather said, and behind her, Aldous rose from his place in the hall.

"Yes, milord?"

"Starting tomorrow, I would like you to widen your studies with my granddaughter. She has expressed interest in the practicalities of administration; very well, let her learn of them. She is to study strategy, land husbandry, and management, as her brother does, while continuing with the more routine education you have been giving her."

Aldous bowed. "I trust the Lady Gwyn will be as apt a pupil in these arts as she is in all the others, Teyrn Cousland. It will be as you command." At Grandfather's nod, Aldous sat.

Gwyn couldn't help her smile. She was so happy—_delighted. _She could study what Fergus did! Things that made sense! Things that would help her help the family one day, help Highever! Fergus shook his head at how happy she was. He looked pitying. "You'll be sorry you let them think you wanted all _that_, sister!"

Gwyn stuck her tongue out at him. "I won't either, so there!"

"Indeed, you may," Mother said from where she sat, and Fergus immediately stopped making faces at Gwyn. "For these will not be the only changes to your routine. Since you find our lessons in embroidery and music so taxing, I believe we might try diplomacy, dancing, and law for a while. Would that be more to your liking?"

Gwyn stared at Mother, overwhelmed. "I—I don't know," she managed. "I'm not sure I'll be much good at dancing." She frowned. "And isn't diplomacy just another name for etiquette?"

Mother smiled. "Say, 'etiquette applied,' with somewhat more of a focus on negotiation—on convincing others to see your way of things—that I believe might please you. You seem to have something of a knack for it already, it seems, at least with your Father and Grandfather." She shot the two of them a look down the table, and Father smiled back pleasantly at her. "And as for the dancing—I shouldn't worry about your skills _there_, with your ability to ride that pony of yours and run about as you do. But even if it does prove something of a struggle for you, a lady must have some artistic accomplishments, Gwyn."

Gwyn made a face, and Mother's own face grew stern. "You've been extended grace here, darling, and won a victory you have not quite deserved. You owe your father and grandfather your thanks, and I trust you won't dishonor their generosity to you by running out on our new lessons."

"No," Gwyn said quickly, curtseying to Mother. "I'll learn, I promise. Thank you." She hesitated, and then walked around the head table to Grandfather and hugged him, hard. "Thank _you_," she whispered.

Grandfather hugged her back. "Your brother is not far wrong, you know. You're thanking me for a far harder curriculum than you might have otherwise had, and likely a more difficult road ahead. But you're welcome, Gwyn." He stooped and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "I'm proud of you," he whispered. His voice grew wry and teasing. "I believe one day you will even deserve it."

* * *

**A/N: Happy New Year! Happy New Decade! May it bring all of us both character-building learning experiences and our fair share of blessings. **

**Regarding Gwyn's memory of Teryn William and her father allowing the stable master at Castle Cousland to corporeally discipline her after she neglected her mount—this was not intended to be a depiction of abuse. Although mores and culture have changed in the past decades, there was a time when it was not considered abusive for parents or authority figures in the community to physically correct children for mistakes, especially when it was done in a **_**spirit**_** of correction, as this was, and not in a spirit of anger. While certain characters in this series do experience various types of abuse at various times (Leto, Katja and Rica, Alistair, and Varric, though this may not always be explicit), Gwyn Cousland is one of the characters that has good and loving parents, as well as community figures that take a hand in her development. Discipline in her home is not often physical and is more often the kind that is outlined more fully here, designed to encourage reflection and develop character. **

**Leave a review if you've got something to say,**

**LMSharp**


	5. Varric: Stranger than Fiction

**Characters: **Varric Tethras, Bartrand Tethras, OMCs Lars and Tolan, OFC Londa, OFC Pema, Madam Lusine, OMC Benoit, OFC Stela, OFC Jarin, various other named and unnamed OCs and passing mentions of Ilsa Tethras

**Pairings: **Past, purely sexual Stela/Varric; Unrequited Jarin/Varric.

**AU Elements: **None

* * *

**Stranger than Fiction**

**9:18 Dragon**

**Kirkwall**

Varric staggered to his feet, stumbled around the corner of a convenient moneylender's office building, and promptly lost his breakfast. Andraste's ass, he could smell the blood! It was all over him! He stared at his dripping knives. He purposely hadn't bought shiny ones like the knives the posers that never got their hands dirty had. Aside from making it ridiculously easy to distinguish the fakers from the fighters, they encouraged theft. But still. Before today, he had been a faker, no matter what he'd looked like. Never killed anyone. Now his knives were dripping all over the Kirkwall cobblestone. He wanted to throw them away, but of course, there might be more.

Just a couple of meters away, there were two dead people on the ground. And he'd killed them. Sure, they had tried to kill him first. But—Maker, had they had families? Sweethearts or children?

He was shaking. He needed to piss, and he was 95 percent sure it was just because he was scared. _Damn, if there are more of them, they could probably just kill me now. I don't think I could put up much of a fight._

"Varric? Varric?! Void take it, you tricky-tongued, smug little asshole, if you let the bastards get you after all . . ."

Varric braced himself on his knees and managed to stand up. Just. "You know, no one says 'I love you,' quite like you, Bartrand," he called. His voice was weaker than he would have liked, but at least his sense of humor seemed to be working. _That's something_.

Three pairs of boots sounded around the corner. Bartrand and the two hired protection thugs Varric had been all too happy to ditch. _This morning._ Bartrand stopped in front of him, hands on hips. "That," he said, with emphasis, "had to be the most idiotic thing I've ever seen."

"Look, Bartrand—"

"Intercept two Guild assassins on your own, across the market from the people who are supposed to keep us safe, and when you engage, you forget everything Crista ever showed us and flail around like a lunatic. What kind of technique was that, little brother? Loose elbows; your guard was open half the time; it's a miracle _those_ are the only guts on the sidewalk." Bartrand's jaw tightened. "No, not a miracle. A miracle assumes some sort of divine justice. You _should've_ been gutted, the way you moved. That you weren't was just sheer, dumb luck."

"'Thank the Maker you're not dead, Varric,'" Varric said. The horror and nausea of the kills was fading now, replaced with a sort of numb coldness that he guessed was probably shock. "'Are you hurt? I don't know what I'd do without you!'"

Bartrand shook his head. "Don't be ridiculous. It's bad enough heaving up your stomach over a couple of murderers like a damned coward without being sentimental to boot. At least you were man enough to actually finish the bastards. Did they cut you? Either of them? _Not_ that I think anyone would waste blade-poison on you."

"Oh, _that's_ nice," Varric said. He was beginning to recover from the shock. "For your information, they didn't. Maybe my melee technique needs a little work—"

"A little!" Bartrand snorted.

"But my reflexes are damned good," Varric continued, stubborn. "Better than yours, anyway."

Bartrand huffed and turned away. "Today. I'll say it again: you got lucky. Next time stay with the rest of us."

"How about next time I just let the Ingermanns walk all over you and save us all the trouble?" Varric muttered, rolling his shoulders and starting to move away. He knew it was a mistake as soon as he said it. He closed his eyes. _Now I'm in for it_.

"What?" Bartrand's voice had gone even sharper. _If that's possible_. "You think that had anything to do with this?"

Varric turned around to face Bartrand. "Use your head, brother. Since Father died and you took over, no one in the Guild has seen any point in trying to kill us. They dismissed us as kids and decided to just cheat us instead. You've started clawing our way back, and that's got them starting to pay attention again, but the only thing that's _really_ changed since last week is I asked around a little about the deal you were making with the Ingermanns and then told you what I found out at the Guild meeting. Do some of your own asking around and I guarantee you'll find out the Ingermanns hired these guys. They came after me. And now they're dead." Varric swallowed, stepped past Bartrand, and walked back out into the street proper. "We should find a guard."

"Why bother?" one of Bartrand's thugs grunted. "Cutthroat scum. Who cares if the flies get 'em before a patrol comes 'round?"

Varric rolled his eyes. "Possibly the mother and small child who don't particularly care to see a couple of disemboweled corpses out shopping, Lars. Or didn't you think of that?" He shivered. Shuddered. He didn't look back over his shoulder. Lars grumbled under his breath. Varric ignored him.

"Hey! Hey!" That was Bartrand, half-jogging to catch up with him. "I didn't need your damned _help_ with the Ingermanns. These assassins could've been from anyone. They probably only went after you to get to me. Like a warning."

_Well, it'd be their loss then, when they found out you don't give a damn about me._ Varric sighed. "Whatever you say." He didn't buy a word of it, of course. The assassins had come for him, and he knew why. Pointing out the Ingermanns' dirty dealing in front of everyone at the Merchant's Guild meeting had been a bigger amateur move than any move he'd made in the fight just now. _Won't be doing that again, however satisfying it is_. But it did no good to argue with Bartrand. "Bartrand, I killed people today. Can you skip the rest of your yelling at me so I can go find the Kirkwall Guard and go home? I want to get cleaned up."

"Ancestors, how the hell did _you_ manage to kill those bastards?" Bartrand muttered. "Ink-stained, head-in-the-books, sentimental _coward_ . . ." The insults lowered into incoherency. The beard did that, Varric found. His head pounded, and his eyes stung, but he didn't say anything to Bartrand this time. His brother hadn't actually told him no.

* * *

It was hours before Varric got home and got cleaned up. The Kirkwall Guard didn't charge him with murder. He'd confessed to knifing the assassins in Hightown near the Merchant's Quarter, after all, which wasn't exactly the action of a murderer, they said. But they did make him, Bartrand, Lars, and Tolan all give extensive reports about what parts they had played—and seen—in the fight. By the time they trudged out of the Viscount's Keep, the sun was already going down, and Bartrand was grumpier than ever.

So Varric didn't _stay_ home after he'd changed and washed. He couldn't stay still. He kept feeling his dagger sliding into the assassins. He hadn't expected it to feel so _easy_. He kept seeing the shock and surprise on their faces, the empty way they had looked on the street as the blood pooled outward, really, _obscenely_ red. He kept feeling it on him, hot and sticky, and smelling it, even though he'd checked three times up in his room and seen he'd got it all off. Today, seventeen years of practice laughing off Bartrand's complete lack of anything remotely resembling a soul couldn't help him. No matter how many half-assed jokes he cracked, Bartrand could see exactly how shaken he was, and because Varric was so shaken, he couldn't handle the mockery today. And Mother's open pity and compassion was really just as bad.

It was just as easy to leave the house through his bedroom window as it had always been. Bartrand knew he snuck out sometimes—_or all the time_—but right around the time Varric had turned eleven, Bartrand had given up trying to stop him. Tonight, Bartrand probably thought there was no way even Varric would be stupid enough to try to leave the house alone. _But if I'm shut up in _there_ all the time from now on, I might as well be dead_, Varric thought. Still, he did keep his hand a little closer to his daggers than he usually did as he wound through the dark streets of Kirkwall.

On any normal night, Varric would probably head to the docks to chat up some traders, or to visit some of his friends in Lowtown. The Hanged Man was smoky and dirty and attracted kind of a rough crowd, but they had the darkest ale in Kirkwall, and Varric had met some of the most interesting people he knew over a pint or a game of cards in there. Could usually win a few bits, too, as he was still young enough most newcomers to the pub saw him and thought 'kid,' like he hadn't figured out gambling years back, though some of the regulars were getting more careful going up against him.

But tonight, Varric was just a little jittery about navigating every dark street from Hightown to Lowtown or the docks. Rationally, he knew he was probably safer down there than he was in his own neighborhood just now. It was the respectable citizens of the Merchant's Guild that wanted to kill him.

_Too bad fear isn't rational. _

So Varric ended up heading to the Blooming Rose instead. As he strode into the Red Lantern District, Londa, the whore working the corner tonight, catcalled at him playfully. She was an elf, only a couple years older than he was, tall and willowy, pale, with soft, light brown curls gathered up into a high horsetail that showed off her excellent bone structure. She was pretty, in a pointy kind of way, if you liked that fey sort of sheen to her enormous, sapphire-blue eyes that was so common in elves. "Out late tonight, aren't we, Master Varric? Maybe you'll sample a real meal, lovey!"

"Londa! Ed will be so crushed you said that!" Varric called back, grinning. "His stew's one of the realest meals I've ever had the pleasure to taste!" He affected a considering pause. "I'm going to tell him," he said.

Londa laughed. "Go on, you rogue. Custom's custom, I guess, even if it's as unconventional as you are."

Still grinning, Varric made a courtly bow in Londa's direction and entered the Blooming Rose. _This was a good idea_, he thought. He felt better already.

His mother would probably be appalled by a lot of things he did on his own in the city, but by nothing more than knowing he was a regular patron of the most famous brothel in Kirkwall.

Not that Varric had been _that_ kind of patron since his very first time here about a year ago. He'd known enough that he'd thought he was prepared for being less than accomplished in the bedroom, at least to start with, but he hadn't been, really. And he had been completely _unprepared_ for how scummy and dirty it felt to pay a pretty girl to put up with all his awkwardness and have a miserable time because he'd been too shy or too stupid to try convincing a girl he knew to do it for free, just because she liked him. He had apologized so profusely afterward that the girl, Stela, had stopped laughing at him, gone downstairs, and gotten him a plate from the kitchen to calm him down, free of charge, and Varric had inadvertently discovered that the most famous brothel in Kirkwall served really, _really_ good food.

So the whores and staff at the Blooming Rose were now getting to know him about as well as the regulars at the Hanged Man. Varric didn't like it here quite as much—the perfumed curtains and wall hangings made his nose itch even more than the stench at the pub, and most of the workers here couldn't help ragging him, hard. But it was all in good fun, and, truth was, they were some of the smartest people he'd found in the city. Funny and observant, and every flavor from sour and cynical to dry to far sweeter than most people would expect. A lot of them had the kind of sad and terrible stories most people thought whores had. But a lot of them just liked people and sex.

The workers that weren't busy with patrons waved or jeered at him kindly when he came in, the way Londa had done, and Varric called back to some of his closer friends, laughing and insulting their looks and their brains and the make of the Orlesian bustiers they were wearing this season as hard as they ever insulted his choice to practice celibacy in the brothel.

He swung himself up onto one of the polished wooden stools at the bar. Pema, the bartender, turned to face him, hand on one of her ample hips. "Master Varric, yeh triflin' scoundrel. And here yeh are agin, takin' up a stool we could use for payin' patrons."

"Lies and slander, Pema! Lies and slander! I am a paying patron!" Varric protested. "I'll pay you right now for a pull of your fine ale and a heaping helping of whatever Ed's got on."

"Sure, and just about break all our girls' hearts while yer at it," Pema said, shaking her head with a put-upon, mournful expression. "And who's t' comfort 'em when they're left sighing over yeh after yeh leave 'em without so much as a kiss?"

Varric feigned sympathy. "I'm sure they'll all find distractions soon. They won't be as dashing and handsome as I am, of course."

Pema clicked her tongue at him, then couldn't restrain her grin. "Sure, and it's good to see yeh, Master Varric," she said, plopping down the tankard of ale in front of him. "A waste of a fine young man, and a finer purse, but good to see yeh all the same." She gave him a nod, then walked through the curtained door behind the bar that led to the kitchen to give Ed Varric's order.

"Varric, darling," came a low, husky voice. "Lovely to see you."

Varric turned around to see Madam Lusine leaning up against the bar, a posture that showed off the décolletage exposed by her low-cut, magenta velvet gown to fantastic effect. The brothel's owner had to be at least twice Varric's age, past the prime for the business her girls conducted, but she was still a gorgeous woman. There wasn't any gray yet in the rich, golden hair braided and twisted up behind her head in a businesslike way (that nevertheless was quite artistic about drawing attention to her long, graceful neck). Her eyes were a peculiar shade of blue-green that seemed to shift with her mood. She was a little heavily powdered, maybe, trying to mask the faint lines across her forehead and around her mouth. She could still make Varric's mouth go dry, though, and he had a lot of respect for her. The story was that she had bullied and tricked the last owner of the brothel into selling to her about five years back—your standard, brutish pimp type. The two or three workers that had been here back then said she was a much better boss, and she'd held the Rose on her own against half a dozen would-be buyers and morons who didn't think an uneducated former prostitute could run the place—or objected to her trying.

"Madam," Varric said, bowing a little from his stool. Lusine smiled at him. The gold rims of the funny glass tool she wore on a ribbon around her neck glinted as she breathed.

"What's the news?"

Varric considered. He knew what she wanted. They liked a good gossip at the Rose, and it had always felt like a kind of petty revenge against the pompous jackasses in the Merchant's Guild to fill the ladies and gentlemen here in on the general stupidity he witnessed every day. Tonight, though, he didn't much feel like revenge. He supposed he would have to take some, eventually, or everyone in the Guild would get the idea that they could push him and Bartrand around without reprisal, but tonight—aside from being scared, he just felt sad. There wasn't much that was funny about what had happened, or entertaining. He had killed a couple of guys who had tried to kill him. It had been nasty, messy, and over before he had had half a chance to absorb what was happening_. Not much of a story there._

Varric tapped his fingers on the table. _So tell a better one. _

"Well," he started slowly. "There _was_ a bit of a dust-up in the market today."

Lusine's smile widened, and she walked around the table to stand with Pema as the bartender came back out with a hot meat pie in a crispy, golden crust and set it down in front of Varric. Varric winked at her, fished his fork out of the pouch at his belt, and dug in, speaking between mouthfuls of the hot, savory pie.

"There I was, minding my own business, just doing a little bit of shopping for my mother. Her birthday's coming up, and it's been a good year so far. I thought I might get her some earrings, maybe, or a length of Antivan lace for a shawl. Of course, prices were ridiculous. You wouldn't believe the markup this guy, Olcar, had on his items—"

Lusine clicked her tongue. "Wouldn't I? The swindlers in this town sometimes, I swear!"

"Right?" Varric agreed. "Well, I told him I wouldn't buy his firstborn at those kinds of prices, let alone some salt-stained length of lace from a boat he was clearly too lazy to patch, and I walked away to find a real bargain. I thought he was a criminal. Hah. Little did I know."

"Ooh, the plot thickens," Benoit, one of the male elves that worked the Rose said, passing by the bar to head to greet a man who had just come in.

Varric was warming to his subject. "No sooner had I gone a couple of meters from Olcar's stall then I was attacked," he said. "There were two of them. One was this enormous Rivaini, two meters tall at least. Long, black hair in a horsetail, rippling, hairy biceps bulging out of a leather jerkin, and a rusty cutlass. The elf with him looked Antivan—tan and dark and slippery as a shadow. Andraste's ass, was I unprepared. The Rivaini almost had me in a second. I knocked over an orange cart trying to duck his first swing.

"'Varric Tethras!' he roared at me. He sounded like an angry bull, but he was smiling. 'Regards from the Merchant's Guild!' He lunged. I was about scared enough to piss myself, let me tell you. I tripped trying to get away from him, the orange cart owner screaming at me the whole time, mind, and nearly fell right into the elf's blade. I kicked him instead. Childish, maybe, but it worked. My boot hit his shin hard, and dear me, that man's _language_."

Varric clicked his tongue disapprovingly and shook his head in his best imitation of scandalized respectability. He had a small audience now—not just Pema and Lusine, but a few other patrons that had decided to grab a bite at the bar. Benoit and his client had settled nearby—Benoit was massaging the older gentleman's shoulders, grinning, and the older gentleman was snickering into his ale. Stela was standing by the bar as well, hiding a smile behind her hand and shaking with silent laughter, eyes twinkling.

Varric took a pull of his ale. "I would have covered my ears," he continued, "if I wasn't running for my life at the time. Well. Trying to run for my life. The oranges kept getting in the way. So, I scooped up a couple of them and tossed them. Hit the big Rivaini right in the eye with one. I think I might have bruised it a little in the scuffle so it was leaking when it hit, because this _terrifying_ man lets out a howl like I've stabbed him, and then _he's_ tripping over the oranges too. I think _maybe_ some juice got into his eye, because he goes careening into the other guy, and they both go down in a heap.

"The orange lady is screaming at all three of us now, abuse worse than the elf's, if possible. But I finally remember, hey, I've got a couple of daggers too, and I've got them out before the Rivaini and the elf sort themselves out and get back to their feet, a little sticky.

"'You little bastard,' the Rivaini growls, and he's not smiling anymore. Squinting a bit, but not smiling. 'We're going to scalp you alive.'

"The elf shrugs. 'Nothing personal, dwarf,' he says, takes a step toward me, and limps. 'Well. Not _too _personal.'"

The rest of the story flowed so naturally Varric could see it—a better version of what had happened that day, with humor and tragedy and daring heroics. He turned himself into the person he wished he had been—far from looking from a fight, and afraid, yes, but brilliant and daring once he had recovered from the initial shock of the attack, and certainly not one to lose his lunch after the fact. In his story, the elf was suave and fiery, dashing and romantic rather than the silent, terrifying shadow he had been this morning. The Rivaini was a brutal giant—not the pockmarked, feral-eyed, half-starved looking old sailor that Varric had actually stabbed.

He invented a make-believe daughter for the make-believe orange-seller, five years old, apple-cheeked, and wheaten-haired, whom the Rivaini had seized after Varric had mortally wounded his companion, once he realized that the now-alert Varric would not be killed by any honest means. The Rivaini had attempted to use the kid as a hostage to secure his escape, and in doing so had only succeeded in _really _pissing Varric off.

He had killed the Rivaini in a moment of righteous fury, not a quick and dirty scrambling dog-fight for survival. Then he had knelt beside the elf and heard his dying sigh for a far-away lover, and had vowed to take token to her and lie about how her sweetheart had died. The formerly abusive orange-seller had thanked him with tears in her eyes for her child's life, and Varric had generously paid for her spoiled wares.

There had been no Bartrand, no mockery for his shoddy technique, no hours-long detour to the Viscount's Keep afterward to fill out paperwork for the guard. "So, I went home," Varric shrugged, finishing up, and swallowing the last of his pie. "I cleaned up, and then I decided to come out and see some of my favorite people in Kirkwall. What's new around here?"

There was a general outcry at this, as everyone sitting and standing around the bar objected to changing subjects so easily. "Blight take it, boy," said a mustached man three stools down from Varric. "I don't know if a word of that rigamarole was true, but even if every bit of it was bullshit, it's first-rate bullshit! Maker's breath, let us muse a bit!" He chuckled. "'Glad I could help, madam. Sorry about the mess.' Hah!"

Pema slid another ale over the bar toward Varric and glanced at Lusine. "On the house, Master Varric, and madam can dock it from my pay if she doesn't like it." Madam Lusine shook her head, hands raised, and Pema nodded at the gentleman. "Can't remember the last time I heard a better one."

"If he gets tired of merchanting, he could probably go into politics," Benoit agreed.

"Or something more in our line," a dwarven whore called Lady with nicer curves than anyone at the Rose said wryly. She winked at Varric. "What do you say, Master Varric, care to tell stories like that every day?"

Varric dropped his mouth open dramatically, putting a hand over his chest. "I have _never _been so insulted. You ask me for the news. I tell you, and every one of you calls me a liar! I've half a mind to take my pint and go!"

"If you go, go write that one down," Madam Lusine suggested. "You're getting better. I would wager you could sell some of the stories you tell us for a pretty penny. Could get you a little distance from the Guild, too. If you happened to want it."

She spoke airily, but her eyes were sharp, and Varric looked at her. His mouth tightened. She guessed that the whole story wasn't a lie, he could tell. When she saw his expression, her own mouth quirked down, and without a word, she reached across the bar and clasped his hand, once. Then she left, drifting toward the front of the Rose again to talk with someone who was looking for her.

Around the bar, Varric's audience was beginning to drift away too, into their own conversations—or upstairs to amuse themselves in different ways. With one last wink at Varric, Benoit led his client off. Lady stepped up, twined her painted fingers through Varric's atop the bar, and in a rustle of silk, stepped up to kiss his cheek. Her auburn hair dragged across his cheek, and her cheap perfume tickled his nose. Varric couldn't help wrinkling it in response, trying not to sneeze, and Lady laughed in his face, squeezed his hand, released it, and walked off toward the main parlor to solicit her own client—but not before smacking his ass above the stool.

Varric jumped, and Pema, turning away from serving another customer down the bar, chuckled under her breath. Then Stela, who had been leaning behind the bar with another girl, a human, walked up with her.

Stela wasn't the richest whore at the Rose. Lady had a mouth on her and those curves besides, so she did all right, but dwarves usually had a smaller clientele in this business, Varric had found, and skinny dwarves like Stela even smaller. He had liked her for all the little braids in her soft brown hair and for the way she smiled, and hadn't cared that she only wore fine wool and linens when most of the other whores could afford to spring for silk, satin, and brocade. Now he liked her because she was a friend—and more than that, because she was a decent person. All the whores at the Blooming Rose were in competition for clientele, and it wasn't unusual for less popular or older ones to try to sabotage newer ones, stab them in the back and try to make them look like idiots. Stela never played that game, and Varric respected her for it.

Her friend today was definitely one of the newer girls; Varric hadn't seen her more than once or twice. But she'd been watching him then too.

Varric shifted. He didn't quite get the way this girl was looking at him. Not the way the other whores at the Rose did, anyway, pleasant and welcoming and evaluating until they figured out he wasn't here for their professional services, and then in a way that was less professional, more genuinely friendly, but also amused and dismissive. There was something much more real about this girl's regard, somehow, and it made him squirm.

Stela saw it, too, and she smirked at him. "My friend, Jarin," she said.

Varric held out his hand obligingly to shake the human girl's. "Varric Tethras."

"I've seen you here before," Jarin said, in a voice that sounded just like she looked—low, and as sweet as sugared milk. _She'll do well here_, Varric thought, _and probably with the nicer clients. _She was Stela's age, maybe nineteen years old, with smoky, soft-looking brown curls left to run wild, a delicately pretty face, and absolutely enormous, deep brown eyes, only just accented with gold paint. "I asked Stela to tell me about you."

"Really?" Varric shot a sidelong look at Stela. "And what did Stela say?"

"Oh, the usual, that you're a trifling, silver-tongued boy that ought not to be out late in a place like this and ought to go back home to mama," Stela said glibly. "And that every one of us here would just cry if you actually did go home."

Varric tilted his head in acknowledgment. "Well, if you just told her _that_ . . ." He smiled at Stela. She winked at him.

"I like your stories, Master Varric," Jarin told him. "Especially the one tonight."

Varric looked at her for a moment. "Hardly any of it was actually true," he admitted.

Stela folded her arms. "But some of it was. Wasn't it?" Suddenly, she sounded very serious, and Varric glanced at her, then down at the table. "That's what I thought," Stela said quietly. "The Ingermanns, was it? Word is you embarrassed them pretty bad last week. Saved your brother a lot of money, not to mention trouble."

Varric forced a smile. "Yeah. Last time I do that," he joked.

Stela just stared at him for a moment, and Varric shifted again. "Really." Her tone was kind, but disbelieving.

"Well. Call out the cheating scum in front of everybody, maybe. That was pretty stupid."

Stela shook her head at him. "Yeah," she said softly. "It was."

"Master Varric," Jarin said, with a sort of gentle shyness that again seemed really weird, coming from a girl at the Blooming Rose. "I'm not working tonight. But . . . if you wanted to, you could come upstairs with me anyway."

Varric shot Stela a look. She raised both her hands over her head, as if to say _Don't look at me. This is all her. _"You know I just come for the food," Varric told Jarin, looking hard at her.

Jarin laughed, a little nervously. "I had heard that. I also heard there was a betting pool for a while after you started coming in here to see who could get you to break the trend. I don't mean to service you, Master Varric. I'm saying—" she laughed again— "badly, it seems—that I've seen you here before." She shrugged, but held his gaze. "I wanted to know you better. I like your stories. And I'm asking—I'm not working tonight. Do you want to go to bed with me? No charge."

Varric blinked. If he told anyone else in Kirkwall later, they would think he had made it up. _I'm not sure I'm _not_ making this up. _Seated at the bar, with Jarin leaning up against it, he was looking over instead of up to stare at her, but she had to be close to 1.7 meters tall. There she was—not one of the sexiest girls here, definitely not one of the nastiest, but almost certainly one of the prettiest he'd ever seen in this place, and riding the novelty advantage to boot. And she wanted to sleep with him. For free. _On her night off_.

_Dear Maker, what is wrong with me?!_

"I do," Varric said. "I really, really, really do." He reached out, took Jarin's hand, and kissed it impulsively. "And I am flattered. I am."

Jarin sighed, smiling ruefully and extricating her hand from Varric's. "But it's a no. Well. The others were right," she said to Stela. "You ruined him."

Stela winced, and Varric rushed to reassure her. "I think I came preruined, really," he told them both. "There's something seriously wrong with the way my mind works. I am cursing myself as we speak." He was. Stela came in for some of the teasing he got for never partaking in any the services the whores offered here, for being the only whore whose services he ever _had_ purchased, and she didn't deserve it.

_Jarin doesn't deserve the rejection, either. I just . . . can't. What is _wrong_ with me? _

"Oh, I'll curse you for a few hours too," Jarin laughed. "But then I think I'll get over it." She assessed him, the shyness gone now, but the genuine quality of her regard still very much present. "You're a strange one, Master Varric, and no mistake. But I had to ask." She paused. "Offer's open, if you ever change your mind."

Varric shook his head. It was getting late, and he really probably should head home, he thought. Even if there weren't assassins in the streets in between here and home, Kirkwall nights could be dangerous. There were usually half a dozen dock crews fighting over the right to rob anyone who had had a little too much to drink. He slid off the barstool and looked up at Jarin. A long way. "Logistics might get a little complicated," he said wryly.

"But interesting," Jarin said cheerfully. She gave him one last, long look. "That mouth and that chest," she said to herself, then tipped him a wave and walked off upstairs by herself.

Stela walked over and shoved him, gently. "Idiot," she told him frankly.

"I know," Varric agreed.

"Absolute fucking moron."

"I know."

"She'd been working up to that the last three weeks, ever since you told the one about the Ferelden-Orlesian bidding war," Stela informed him, starting with him toward the door. "Asked me for moral support, and I _am_ working tonight." She poked him then, not quite as gently. "Is it just the human thing, or did I actually ruin you?" she asked, doubtfully. "Please tell me I didn't. It'd be such a _waste_, and you really weren't _that_ bad—"

Varric winced. "Please." He looked around. The night's business was well underway at the Blooming Rose now, and most of the brothel's patrons had moved away from the lobby and the bar, where they could easily overhear, in search of more private locations. But still.

Stela raised her hands over her head again. "Right. I'm shutting up. Just—maybe let yourself actually have some fun once in a while, Varric. Instead of just talking about it. Before that mouth of yours actually gets you killed." She shot him a stern look, reached up to touch the side of his face with her hand . . . and tweaked his ear. Hard.

"Ouch!" Varric complained, grinning. "It's nice to know someone cares."

"Go home to mama, Tethras," Stela told him. "Tell her that as hard as we try, we haven't quite managed to corrupt you yet. And don't get stabbed on the way!"

She pushed him, laughing and a little regretful, toward the door. Madam Lusine, standing by the exit with her book and the little gold-and-glass instrument perched on her nose to help her look at the books, caught sight of him leaving. "And write down that story!" she called.

"Nag, nag, nag," Varric called back. Madam Lusine kissed her fingers at him, and Varric thrust his hands into his pockets and strode back out into the street.

"What a day," he muttered to himself. It was hard to decide what the weirdest part of today had been. That clenched it. There really was something wrong with him, when he couldn't decide whether it had been weirder to kill a couple of guys or that a beautiful girl had offered to sleep with him for free, hadn't even seemed to want to out of pity, and he'd turned her down.

_Write it down_, Madam Lusine had told him. _I would wager you could sell some of the stories you tell us for a pretty penny. _

_Could I? _

He didn't have a clue. But there was something just wonderfully sad and weird about the idea—making some sense out of the senseless and stupid things, like he had tonight at the bar. Preserving the incredible ones, like Jarin's offer, for posterity. Varric shook his head and turned down another Kirkwall street, already planning out how he might put today down on paper.

* * *

**A/N: Varric's such a weirdo. He can make friends with anyone and has a decided preference for lower-class, raunchy company, surroundings, and pasttimes, but he has this undeniable gentlemanly core to him. In some of the worst environs in Kirkwall, and loving every minute of it, underneath the compulsive storytelling and in the middle of taking you for everything you've got at cards, Varric is also a total sweetheart—compassionate and empathetic to an actual fault, quietly virtuous, and unexpectedly modest.**

**I have more misgivings about this chapter than others I've written for him. I was absolutely certain of myself there. I asked myself several times through this one—is this Varric? But I really do kind of feel that it would be. Bartrand's not-so-secret weapon, still too immature to hold all his metaphorical cards to his chest the way he knows to do with the real ones, telling stories to make up for how life isn't, sensitive enough to freak out after his first kill, and exactly the kind of eccentric who would buy a woman as an insecure sixteen-year-old with a little bit of money, feel absolutely terrible about it afterward, then proceed to make best friends with all the city's prostitutes and practice celibacy in the brothel, no matter how hard people teased him about it. **

**Leave a review if you disagree or just want to talk it over some. To quote a much older Varric, "all this shit is weird." **

**Best Always,**

**LMSharp **


	6. Estral: Songs in the Fade

**Characters: **OFC Siar Lavellan, F!Lavellan (Estral), unnamed ungendered Fade spirit, OMC Retal Lavellan, Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan, audible but off-page OMC Rian Lavellan, mention of others

**Pairings: **Referenced Eylan/Siar Lavellan; Deshanna/nonappearing Sellin Lavellan

**AU Elements: **None

* * *

**9:18 Dragon**

**Clan Lavellan, Somewhere in Rivain**

SIAR

Siar couldn't hear Estral anymore and rose from her loom to find her. She didn't usually bother keeping her daughter in sight; from just past two summers, Estral had been laughing or singing every moment. So long as Siar could hear her little voice, all was well. It was when things went quiet that there was trouble.

"Estral?" she called, stepping away from the ladies. "Darling, where is it that you've gone? Estral?"

"Here, Mam," that high, clear voice called back. Then it said something else, softer, to someone else. Siar couldn't make it out. She quickened her step.

Estral hadn't gone very far—just outside the perimeter of the camp. She was sitting on a boulder on the lee side of an elder tree, not far from a stream. She had probably thought to play in the water—a naughty thing to do on her own, if not overly dangerous; the stream was just a trickle over the rocks. But something else had caught her attention.

Just over Estral's curly head and to her left were . . . things. Shimmering, translucent, ethereal golden bubbles, bobbing and drifting in the air. And Estral was just gazing at them, speaking softly and solemnly, completely unconcerned.

"Estral," Siar said. Her voice came out strangled, harsh and afraid. She couldn't conceal her fear. "Estral, darling, come here. Come away from there."

"What?" Estral asked, surprised. She looked back at Siar, green eyes wide in her little, bony face. "Why?"

"Estral, obey me this instant. Come away from that thing."

Estral's thick, brown brows furrowed. "That's not very kind, Mam. This is my friend. I recognize it from when I sleep at night. It's nice! Here, come say hullo." Estral stood up on her boulder, holding out a little hand to Siar. "It wouldn't hurt us, and it's not even _really_ here, you know. Not completely."

There was a sound like chimes or laughter from the floating golden effervescence. Not unpleasant, but— "Keeper!" Siar yelled, without moving or taking her eyes off of her daughter for a moment. "Keeper Deshanna!"

"What is it, Siar?" Retal asked, coming into sight. He was one of the perimeter guards for the camp today. "What's all this shouting?"

"Get the Keeper, please," Siar told him. "Right now."

Retal took in her posture, the bubbles still hovering just over Estral's shoulder on the rock, turned his back, and ran.

"Mam, you're being rude," Estral scolded her. "Everything's fine. Why do you look so strange? You almost seem scared!"

"Darling, please, please," Siar said, kneeling. "Just come to me. I would feel so much better if you did."

Estral scowled. "All right," she grumbled. "If it'll make you happy." She jumped down off the rock and started toward Siar—and the golden bubbles bobbed right along with her.

"Not—not you, please," Siar said, addressing them with a stammer. "Please, I don't know what it is that you are, but I'll thank you kindly to stay right where you are until the Keeper gets here."

Estral looked up at Siar, exasperated. "I told you, Mam, it's my friend. I dream about it sometimes. It looks different then. It likes to hear me sing."

"Now, what's all the fuss, Siar?"

That was Deshanna, with Retal beside her, panting slightly and clutching her staff. Siar turned to her. "We seem to have an intruder, Keeper. A rather unusual one."

Keeper Deshanna's eyes caught the presence floating with them. Her left hand came up to rest protectively over her stomach. "Greetings, spirit," she said then. "Peace to you. How come you here, and what do you seek? Tell us, so that you may depart into your own place."

She cocked her head, seeming to listen for a moment. She closed her eyes then, and her staff lit with a soft, white glow. "_I understand_," she said then, and there was a strange overtone to her voice, as if her voice echoed elsewhere. The Fade, Siar thought, both fascinated and frightened. "_It brings us joy to hear and speak with this one as well. But she should not walk your woods in her waking hours, nor should you come here at those times. You could slip out of the Fade this way, and I do not believe that is your wish._"

There was a jingling, whispering sigh from the bubbles. They circled Estral's head briefly, then began to fade with a feeling of distinct regret.

"Many thanks, friend," Deshanna said. "Safe walkings."

Estral pouted. "Why would you want to send it away, Keeper?" she complained. "It wasn't hurting anything! We were playing!"

Deshanna put a hand on Estral's shoulder. "Da'len, I'm certain you're right that your friend didn't intend any hurt at all, but this isn't a place where such a spirit can walk freely without _doing_ hurt. It's made for the freedom and the strangeness of the Fade, you see, where we walk in our dreams and after we return to the gods, and when such spirits try to cross over to the rest of us, it does no one any good. Not the spirits, not the rest of us. Do you understand me?"

Estral's pout deepened. "No, I don't," she said, impatient now, stamping her little foot. "It's pretty here. It makes pretty sounds. It's just curious, and it likes me. Why can't it come through?"

"Darling, it was a _demon_," Siar said. "I know you thought it was your friend—"

"It was not a demon," Deshanna corrected Siar, looking back at her for a moment. "Your instincts were right about that, da'len," she told Estral. "Siar, it was a spirit—of curiosity or harmony, I suppose. Most certainly benign, and I sensed it was as innocent as Estral is herself. Perhaps even a bit silly or simple. Da'len," she said, again, addressing Estral. "It can't come through because this isn't its home. It would be like an eagle that took a fancy to dive deep into the ocean, or a trout that decided to fly. Even if your friend could cross over to you completely, it couldn't possibly be prepared for what life looks like here, or comfortable being here. But you say you have spoken to this creature in your dreams?"

Estral nodded. "Mmhm. It looks different then," she said again. "And it can talk better. But it _feels_ the same. I have other friends when I sleep too. They like to hear me sing. Sometimes they sing with me."

A spear of alarm pierced Siar's soul. If Estral was speaking with spirits in her dreams, she was a mage. _She's just a child! Practically a babe! _There was no way she could possibly know the dangers she faced. How many demons had approached her already? If they were seeking her out . . .

But Deshanna's expression betrayed no fear. "That sounds lovely," she said. "Da'len, do you know what it means, that you meet these friends in your dreams?"

Estral frowned. "Doesn't everyone meet friends in their dreams?" she asked, confused.

"Not like this, darling," Siar said.

"That you do means that you are a mage," Deshanna explained. "Like me, and like Rian. You can use magic, and the two of us can train you in how to do it."

Estral wrinkled her nose. "I don't want to be a mage," she said. "I want to be a hunter, like Dad."

"Darling, that's not exactly something that you can decide, unfortunately," Siar said, kneeling in front of her daughter. She looked up into the wide green eyes, so like hers, the sun-browned face—such sharp cheekbones, such a narrow little chin, but softened by the tip-tilted nose and a mouth a goddess had to have kissed there. She ran her fingers through the wild bronze curls Estral had got from her father, a thick and riotous tangle that tumbled around her shoulders and almost always had leaves or flowers in it these days. "You _are_ a mage."

Estral thought about this. "Can I be a mage and a hunter too?" she asked.

"I should say so," Deshanna told her. "With Rian as First of the clan, you'll be Second someday. The Second always goes out with the hunters, to protect them against beasts of the forest or any enemies at all that come against them, and she may do much more besides. You enjoy songs and stories, I know. And as Second, you will learn every one of them that I have to teach—more than anyone else in the clan but Rian."

Estral smiled then—a smile of joyful content that was much more natural to her than a frown or a pout. "_That's_ all right then," she decided. She looked at Siar then. "Can we tell Dad, Mam?" Then she looked back at Deshanna. "And when do we start learning? _Can_ I tell Dad first?"

"For now, I think you need to go find Rian," Keeper Deshanna told her. "I think he's making some baskets that he would love your help with. We can tell your dad when he gets back with the other hunters this evening."

"Okay," Estral agreed cheerfully. She hugged Siar and jogged off. In less than two strides, she had already broken into a song about a bullfrog and a dragonfly that always popped into her head near running water. Siar listened to her go.

"I'll make sure she reaches Rian," Retal said, bowing to the Keeper and to Siar. Deshanna nodded her thanks, and Siar started back to camp with her at a slower pace that was more accommodating to Deshanna's condition.

"She's young, to manifest," Deshanna observed in a low voice. "I was seven. Rian did not manifest until his eighth summer."

"It's _too_ young," Siar said, passionately. "Gods, if that _thing_ had been a demon, or if any of the others are—"

"Rian will stay with her this afternoon," Deshanna told her. "And before she sleeps tonight, I will make her an amulet to guard her mind. I do not think _your_ child has attracted any demons as of yet. They are drawn to unhappiness—to anger, desire, fear, and discontent—to those who may be persuaded to join forces with them or to release them from the Fade. Mythal be praised, Estral has had a sweet childhood thus far and possesses a disposition of equal sweetness. She would bore the demons, or they would fail to notice her in the first place. An amulet will not protect her forever; she will have to learn to recognize the different kinds of spirits and to master herself around them for that. That may be taught. But for now, an amulet may keep her emotions peaceful while she sleeps."

"Thank you," Siar whispered.

"I'm Keeper," Deshanna replied simply. "I'll look after her." But there was a sort of pained resignation in her face as she said it that Siar noticed. She saw Deshanna's hand had moved to cover her own growing child again, and she looked away.

The Keeper's babe would be born in less than two turnings of the moon, and while it was true that magic did not always pass from parent to child, it was also true that it had a decided familial tendency. But if Estral became the clan's Second, there would be no room for a fourth mage. The risk of magical accident would be too great, as would the risk of drawing the attention of Chantry Templars. All the Dalish clans agreed no single clan could have more than three mages. If Deshanna's child someday became a mage like its mother, would the Keeper send Estral or Rian away in favor of her own child? Or could she give up her own child as she had given up her clan years ago, to give primacy to the senior mages?

_Don't go borrowing trouble, Siar,_ she told herself. _Sellin and Deshanna's babe might not even be a mage. It may never be a problem. And in any event, Estral isn't yours anymore anyway. Not entirely. _

She swallowed at that, her eyes stinging. Then a warm and calloused hand slid into hers—the Keeper, giving her strength back when Siar knew she probably didn't have much to spare in the first place. "I'll look after her," Deshanna promised again, in a lower voice. "It isn't all bad, being a mage. It can be dangerous, yes, and sometimes one or more of us have to leave the clans of our births to go somewhere else we're needed, which is a sorrow to us and to everyone involved. But there's a blessing in seeing a bit more of life too. And a great honor to the responsibilities we bear for our people."

"_Bear_," Siar repeated. She couldn't help the twist of her mouth. "It's a burden, Keeper. You know we love and honor you, and I know many people would do much to stand in your place, but I've never been among them." She shook her head. "We all do our part for the clan, but you more than anyone. Your whole life belongs to us, and I've never felt it was very fair for you. And now I know I have to give my baby up to just such a life—"

Deshanna squeezed her hand—a bit tighter than was strictly comfortable. "We aren't like the _shem'len_," she said. "We'll not send our Estral away to some cold, stone tower full of soldiers for her gifts, Siar. You and Eylan will keep your baby."

Siar just shook her head. Rian had mourned more for Keeper Roshaun than he had for his own father, who had followed two years after in an accident with a bear. He pitched his tent near Deshanna and Sellin's, across camp from Graeme and his sister. "Share her," she murmured. "She'll belong to you and the clan as much as to me and Eylan now." She looked over at Deshanna, and tried to smile. "Forgive me, Keeper. I'm being foolish, as well as selfish. How long has Sellin shared _you_ with the rest of us? How long will your own child have to endure all the rest of us pressing on you for your time?" She extricated her hand from the Keeper's and hugged her again, a secondary apology.

"Ah, the gods bless us," Deshanna said quietly. "But they expect us to return those blessings to care for one another. Still—I wish I hadn't been quite so right about the wee lass's patron."

"Mythal," Siar mused. "Mother, protector, judge. It seems so odd—she seems such a child of Sylaise to me, more and more as she grows, whatever she says about going after Eylan. But now—"

They walked into the camp, and Deshanna gave her one last hug before stepping away. She had to make Estral her amulet. And Siar knew she should get back to her weaving. Old Lanara had traded her several dye plants for a new winter blanket, and it wouldn't do to be late with the commission. "The path twists and turns," Deshanna said. "Bring Eylan to me, when he returns. We'll talk over this with him together, and with Rian, and decide how Estral's apprenticeship should go between the four of us."

"As you say, Keeper," Siar agreed, bowing. She turned to walk back to her loom. Across the camp, she could hear Estral's little voice, speaking to Rian, correcting him in her most regal manner about the words to "Ilsbeth Over-Water," and Rian answering gravely back. Earlier this morning, the conversation would have made her smile. Now, Siar sighed. Then, thinking of who—and what else—might be listening to her daughter as she began to sing the song the right way to demonstrate to the First, Siar shivered.

* * *

**A/N: You know what, I'm actually just going to leave this without further comment. Take what you will from it. **

**Best Always,**

**LMSharp **


	7. Kaycee: A Place to Call Home

Characters: Malcolm Hawke, OMC Robin, Leandra Hawke, Carver Hawke, Bethany Hawke, F!Mage!Hawke (Kaycee), mention of others

Pairings: Malcolm/Leandra Hawke

AU Elements: None

* * *

**9:18 Dragon**

**Lothering, Arling of South Reach, Ferelden**

MALCOLM

Malcolm lowered his staff, breathing heavily. The air still sizzled where the possessed Templar had been, but now the man lay still on the road at his feet. Empty and at peace. Malcolm didn't know what kind of man Ser Broderic had been before his little mishap. He went out of his way to avoid Templars. Had Ser Broderic been greedy and foolish enough to deal with the demon when it was set loose in the world, or had he simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time? His wounded colleague at the Chantry was frantic, but was he frantic over a cruel and abusive man or a kind and dutiful one? What kind of loss would Ser Broderic be to the people he had protected and could have continued to protect?

No matter what the truth of the situation had been, the sordidness and waste of it all turned Malcolm's stomach. What mage had summoned the demon that had taken Ser Broderic? Why had no one set the proper safeguards, on either side? Mage or Templar could have done it.

Someone cleared their throat from behind him, and Malcolm felt his blood run cold. He turned to see Robin from the house two doors down standing there with his mule and traveling cart.

He had forgotten Robin had been east to Wulverton to see his sister wed to a merchant this past week, that Darine was expecting her husband back any day. How much had Robin seen?

Malcolm forced a smile he did not feel, and, subtly, readied his staff in case Robin attacked. "Believe it or not, I did _not_ just murder this Templar." He saw a bow in Robin's cart. It was hazardous for anyone to travel the king's road unarmed, though things had improved somewhat from the old days under Orlesian rule.

"Didn't look like you had," Robin said, in a surprisingly calm voice. "Looked more to me like you saved me the nasty fight I was expecting heading home. Dwarven merchant up the way told me one of the Templars back here had had an accident, that Lothering had sent for help with a possession but the thing had been giving travelers this way some trouble. Almost stayed away another couple days or so until reinforcements from Buchanan sorted everything out—" he clicked his tongue, then shrugged, "but I was that worried about Darine."

Malcolm waited, still ready. The man didn't seem hostile or overly threatened, but experience had taught him not to take anyone's reactions to a mage for granted. But Robin just leaned back in his seat, chewing on a blade of grass and regarding him with some curiosity. Then he clicked his tongue again. "Few things about you make sense now, I reckon."

"I suppose they must," Malcolm said heavily, already wondering if he would have to leave before the others and send a wisp back to Kaycee to alert her to bring Leandra and the twins away when she saw her chance and meet him elsewhere—they had a few prearranged rendezvous points. In this situation, perhaps reuniting in the Hinterlands would be best. The mountain villages beyond them were often rather isolated.

"Reckon Ser Codin up at the Chantry will be that glad to hear about how I put Ser Broderic out of his misery coming back," Robin added. "Sure it's been eating him up, his wound keeping him from doing his duty himself."

Malcolm blinked, and Robin looked at him with an unrevealing expression. Then he reached over in his cart for his bow, bent and strung it deftly, and fired three arrows in rapid succession. Malcolm raised his staff and brought up a barrier instinctively, but Robin had not fired at him. Malcolm looked over his shoulder and saw the three arrows sticking out of the unfortunate Ser Broderic—piercing him throat, kidney, and ribs.

Malcolm stared, then started to smile. Slowly, he lowered his staff and released his barrier, and Robin twitched his reins. His mules began ambling down the road again toward the village. He nodded, and Malcolm fell into step with him on the road. Robin tilted his head, fixing Malcolm with a hard stare. "So. When are you going to stop letting Barlin rob you blind and build your own house?"

"I—"

"'Cause Miriam's getting on a bit," Robin mused, without stopping. "Know she appreciates your eldest girl's help in the stillroom. And can't say I'd mind your help with the harvest. Could set some seed aside to help you expand your garden next year, maybe."

They walked on in silence for the next several minutes while Malcolm digested this. Finally, they came to Robin's door. "Think about it," Robin urged. "I'll go tell 'em up at the Chantry how I put down poor old Broderic."

"Yes, I'm certain they'll be glad to hear it," Malcolm said, amazed, and with a rising sense of hope. "I will think about what you have said. And—I thank you and admire you for the care you show your neighbors, Robin."

"Killing the possessed Templar," Robin said.

"Killing the possessed Templar," Malcolm agreed, waving goodbye and walking down the road to his own house. Dusk was turning to night proper now, and there was a light shining in the window of the little house they were renting from Barlin.

Malcolm walked inside, still bemused, and hung his cloak on the hook by the door. Leandra looked up from where she stood over the table, chopping vegetables for the soup bubbling on the stove with the twins on either side of her, helping. Her sleek, oak-brown hair was beginning to silver now, and the lamplight showed the lines time had drawn around her eyes and mouth—lines of privation and hardship, the sacrifices she had made to be wife to him and mother to their children. She had always been a beautiful woman, and the kindest, most generous person he'd ever known besides, but time seemed to give Leandra an extra measure of grace and gentleness each year that passed. He loved her more now than he had the day she had agreed to run away with him.

And she knew him now so much better than she had then. "Malcolm, what's happened?" she asked, and the twins, arguing genially over who was cutting the beans most evenly, went quiet. Then Leandra closed her eyes. "You went to deal with Ser Broderic, didn't you?"

"It could have been another two days before reinforcements arrived from Buchanan," Malcolm said, defensive. "If someone here had run afoul of the creature occupying him before then—"

Leandra sighed. "So you took care of it. Carver, Bethany, go to your bedroom. Start gathering your things together. Only what's necessary. Kaycee!"

Malcolm heard a rustling from the loft above the main room of the house that had become his eldest daughter's sleeping place since their move to Lothering. After bringing her wages home from Miriam's, Kaycee liked to spend her evenings up there with a lantern, reading. He thought she spent rather more time on penny dreadfuls bought from traveling merchants than on her lessons, but she had not lost control of her abilities for near two years now. He was fairly certain, in fact, that the town healer, Miriam, was so enthusiastic about Kaycee's assistance because the girl had somehow learned to infuse healing magic in more ordinary salves and poultices in a way that was nigh undetectable. And since she did her chores in the mornings cheerfully and without complaint and shared her penny dreadfuls with Leandra, he didn't object to her taking a little time to herself in the evenings.

He saw her dark head, backlit by her lantern, poke over the top of the loft, and looked back at the twins, gone silent, moving toward their bedroom. Bethany had flour on her dress, and her face looked pinched and white. Carver's fists were clenched.

"Actually, Leandra," Malcolm said. "What would you think if we stayed this time?"

* * *

LATER

KAYCEE

Kaycee walked across the room and put the third log on the fire since Father had come home and dropped his little thunderbolt on the rest of them. At least one of their neighbors knew he was a mage. And he wanted to stay in Lothering.

Kaycee's skin prickled and itched. She knew Ser Codin, the only Templar still stationed at the Chantry, was laid up with wounds from his confrontation with the demon that had possessed Ser Broderic, and that reinforcements probably wouldn't arrive until close to midday tomorrow. But everything in her entire life so far told her that their family should be at least half a day gone by then. Stay in Lothering? When Ser Codin would recover and a new Templar would be assigned to replace Ser Broderic, or even more, maybe? When any day Robin could let what he knew slip to someone who wouldn't be as kindly inclined as he was? Or worse, turn on them the next time he and Father disagreed about his pay for help on the farm?

Carver was on her side for once. "I don't like this, Father," he said, for perhaps the seventeenth time since the discussion had begun. "What if Robin decides not to be friendly anymore? I don't understand why we haven't left already. Any day now someone could ask exactly how a skinny little girl's somehow a better healer than a woman five times as old." He glared at Kaycee. The other day, he'd caught her working with a wisp over some burn balm for Gillian Mays's kid. To Carver, it was an unforgivable risk, never mind that Kaycee thought she would go insane if she didn't get to use magic _sometimes_.

She made a face at him, but Bethany was already arguing. Bethany wasn't normally one to argue with anyone about anything, but she had been unusually opinionated tonight. "And maybe they won't care any more than Robin did. Did you think of that? Kaycee's not hurting anyone; she's _helping_. All of us are like that. Maybe it's different here. Maybe we could just be normal for once in our lives. Just live, like anyone else."

"You would have to _be_ like anyone else for us to do that," Carver retorted. "But you're _not_. Father's not. Kaycee's not. And if we don't want the Templars to catch you all and throw you in different towers, the last thing we need is to start letting our guard down now."

Bethany flushed. "You think I'm not scared of the Templars? I'm scared of the Templars, Carver! I have more reason to be scared than you ever will!"

"Right, just because I'm not a mage I can't care whether my father and my sisters get caught and shipped off or killed," Carver snapped.

"Carver! Bethany!" Mama tried, but the twins were too far gone now, for probably the fourth time tonight.

"If Father says he thinks it's safe, we can trust him," Bethany was saying.

"He knows we're tired is all. But staying in one place is as stupid now as it's always been. Kaycee agrees with me. Don't you, Kaycee?" Carver turned furious eyes on her.

Kaycee held up her hands. "I agree with you," she said. "I've said that. But I'm not in charge here. As far as I can tell, this is going to come down to Mother."

Father looked at Mama, who was twisting her hands, rocking in her chair, back and forth, in a distracted kind of way. "This has to be a family decision, my love," he said. "I do not think we need to leave immediately, however. Indeed, it might be somewhat foolish to do so. Despite past experiences, I trust Robin. If he's taken credit for Ser Broderic but directly afterward our whole family goes missing, it could arouse the suspicions of people who otherwise wouldn't think anything of our departure. Still, if we are to leave before there are further little hiccups in security—before we have established even deeper roots here that will be more painful to pull away—we should make that choice soon."

Mama rocked back and forth more. "Oh, Malcolm, you know we _are _tired. It would be lovely to settle for a while, just to mind our own business and live as anybody else does, and it will be a wrench to leave the life and the friends we've made here as is. But staying . . . I just don't know. If I say yes, and next week the Templars catch us unprepared, or we have to leave in three years when it will just break our hearts to do it . . ."

"So let's get out now," Carver said, arms folded across his chest, impatient. "Come on. It's the only thing that makes sense. Maybe we don't leave tonight, if that'd be stupid, but definitely before harvest."

"Or we could stay," Bethany returned. "Mama, how often have you said how much you hate trading with the neighbors for food? If we stay, if we build our own little house, we could have a real garden. We could build a loft with enough room for two of us, not just Kaycee. All three of us could have our own space. Carver, you'd like your own room, wouldn't you? Away from us girls?"

Carver glared still more ferociously. "You and Kaycee and Father could get sent away and I'd have _plenty_ of space," he muttered.

Despite agreeing with him and being really quite touched by his worry for them, Kaycee couldn't help but roll her eyes just a little. "Because the Templars have been so effective against us all before. Honestly, Carver, you're acting as though staying here would be some kind of death sentence. Like the three of us can't look after ourselves. Leaving Lothering before someone less friendly than Robin decides to sic the Templars on us would be smarter and more convenient, but even running for our lives we can hold our own."

Father smiled, but it was a tight smile. "Many apostates have believed that and been wrong, Kaycee. Have a care your head doesn't get too inflated."

"Right," Carver agreed. "There's only so much Father and I can do to hold them off if they use their powers to cancel out magic, after all." He lifted his chin, but he cut such a ridiculous figure there, with a length of linen around his finger from where he'd cut himself chopping vegetables earlier, only a few centimeters taller than his diminutive twin, and even skinnier than she was.

Kaycee laughed at him. "If I ever have to rely on you for protection, I'll just surrender myself to the Templars right then."

Carver went red, and opened his mouth, but Mama and Father were both all over her already. "Kaycee!"

"Apologize to your brother," Father ordered.

Kaycee rolled her eyes, but she did feel a little embarrassed. "Very well, Carver: I'm sorry. Maybe you'll grow. Actually be able to swing a broadsword someday. I promise: if you do, and we're stupid enough to stay someplace we are actually in danger of being caught, I'll let you pretend you're protecting me for as long as it takes to escape."

"Is that really the best you can do?" Mama demanded, arms folded. "With an attitude like that, you'll be lucky if your brother still wants to protect you when he's big and strong enough to do so."

Kaycee let out a frustrated breath. "Oh, come on. Carver knows I didn't mean it. He knows I _never_ mean _anything_!" She glanced back at the still red and fuming Carver, reached out a hand toward him. "I admit it: I'm the worst sister in the world, and the day you do master the sword, the first thing you do should be to beat me with the flat until I'm black and blue and regret every awful thing I've ever said to you. There! Does that answer?" she asked her parents.

Mama sighed, but Father was fighting a smile. "Well, Carver?" Mama asked.

He glowered at Kaycee, but he took her hand anyway. She beamed back at him, a fake expression, but it was enough that Bethany, beside him, and grim enough herself right now, giggled, and Carver huffed but relaxed.

Kaycee kept his hand and moved to stand beside him, looking up at Mama. "The point is that he and I _are_ on the same side here. I get that it would be nice to stay here, Mother. We're making friends. Father has work to do, and so do I. I'm enjoying it, having work. I'd just hate to return Miriam's _Herbalist Companion _before I get the chance to try out some of the remedies. And the neighbors have been fantastic—so far. But it's a nasty risk, settling down. As far as things go, I think I'd rather leave Lothering before anyone has to protect anyone." She looked down at her bare feet, remembering a night wading through icy cold water and an even colder voice from the Fade as the hounds of the Templars bayed in the distance.

Carver seemed to remember that night too—the closest call the five of them had ever had—though he and Bethany had been so little at the time. He straightened beside her and squeezed her hand.

Mama hesitated, and Father waited, and as Bethany looked at them all standing there, her chin started to wobble. She ran to Mother, grabbing her hand. "Mama, don't you think it's a risk worth taking?" she begged. "Robin was nice! I think the others would be nice too, if they found out, and we can keep them from finding out. We can! Father can be better. We all can! We can be normal! Please, I want to be normal! Just to _try_, for once!"

Mother's face crumpled. She bent to put an arm around Bethany, and Kaycee closed her eyes. She dropped Carver's hand.

"Malcolm, do you think we could really do it?" Mother asked. "Just to try it out? A year maybe, another couple of seasons. We could leave in the spring, if we're still nervous."

"I think we could," Father answered. "There will have to be rules—and little Bethany, you're right. I'll have to be better as much as you and Kaycee. Never where—"

"Never where anyone else can see," Kaycee and Bethany recited with him. "Never behind an open window or an unbarred door. Always at least an hour away from the town or the road in the open. Secret means secure."

Kaycee blushed as Carver looked at her triumphantly, clearly thinking about the burn balm again. Okay, so she needed to be better too.

Bethany began to grin and bounce in place. Malcolm folded his arms. "And?"

"My magic will serve that which is best in me, not that which is most base," Kaycee finished with Bethany. Father exchanged a look with Mama.

"Very well. We'll bide our time until spring then."

Bethany squealed, kissed Mama on the cheek, and dashed into Father's arms. "Oh, thanks! Thank you! It'll be fine, you'll see! We'll build a little house and plant a little garden—bigger than now—and you and me will play with Tulip and Darren and Liza and Coll, Carver, and Red'll help you get so much better with the sword that Kaycee won't be able to say boo to you, and—"

"And it's late," Father said. "To bed, Bethany! To bed, all of you. The Chantry will be tolling out the morning bells soon—"

"Isn't it horribly slothful to be in bed after the Chantry tolls the morning bell?" Bethany asked slyly. "Maybe we should just stay up!"

Mama began to scold her, and Carver, grumbling about how no one ever listened to him and they would all be sorry, probably, started off toward the twins' room on his own.

But Kaycee folded her arms and looked up at Father. "Will you want my help building the house?" she asked.

Father made a show of looking her up and down. Then he pinched her upper arm, frowned, clicked his tongue, and shook his head. "If I _ever_ need to rely on _you_ for help putting up a building. . ." he teased gently.

Kaycee made a face at him. "I'm bigger and stronger than _Carver_ is, anyway. I could help."

"Without magic?" Father asked her.

Kaycee grimaced, imagining lifting the beams up in the heat of the summer without magic. "Fine. So I'll fetch water and bring you different tools and things."

"And Alec and Tevas, if you please," Father said, referring to Miriam's two sons. "Don't worry, Kaycee. It will get done."

Kaycee looked straight at him. "That's not what I'm worried about."

Father stooped down and kissed her on the forehead. "I know it," he said. "You're a good girl. But don't worry about the Templars either, if you can manage it. I truly do think we have a chance to live here. And at any rate, worrying about this family isn't your job. It's mine. Now. Off to bed with you."

Kaycee rolled her eyes and walked over to the loft ladder.

Father couldn't keep her from worrying, whatever he said, she thought. Maybe he and Bethany were right about this place. Maybe Lothering could be home, for a while. It'd be nice, Kaycee thought, to have a home. But if they were wrong!

_. . . But what if they aren't? _

Kaycee fell asleep as the neighbors' chickens started crowing in the morning for the first time since the demon took Ser Broderic, still debating the question.

* * *

**A/N: Because in **_**DA2**_** the Hawkes seem to both have moved around a lot as children and been in Lothering quite a while. And because I see my Kaycee as fundamentally more similar to her brother in values and feeling, for all Bethany is everyone's darling and Hawke and Carver are always butting heads. **

**Leave a review if you've got something to say,**

**LMSharp**


	8. Alistair: For the Best

**Characters: **Alistair, Eamon Guerrin, OMC dog Urso, OFC Brinda, mention of others.

**Pairings: **None

**AU Elements: **It is potentially AU that Alistair spent his early childhood in Castle Redcliffe and was later _moved_ out to the stables, but due to the need to supervise small children, I don't actually think so.

* * *

**For the Best**

**9:18 Dragon**

**Redcliffe Castle, the Arling of Redcliffe, Ferelden**

Alistair knew what was coming when Eamon called him in to his study after breakfast. "Ser," he was saying, before Robern had even shown him entirely in the door. "It wasn't my fault with Bann Jothis yesterday. I would've bowed and milorded and gone out to play without saying anything else. He wanted to talk to me, and I thought it would be rude to say I couldn't, and how could I have known he'd be walking down the hall right when Arnel let me out of lessons? I—"

"Peace, Alistair," Eamon said, holding up a hand. Alistair shut his mouth, going hot all over, and looked down at his shoes, waiting. He heard Eamon sighing. "Believe it or not, I did not call you in here to scold. It is time we talked about your future."

Alistair blinked and looked up again. "My future?"

"You've eight winters, after all," Eamon said. "That's full enough to apprentice to a trade, don't you think? And you're big and strong, and quick with it, or so I'm told." He smiled to show he was teasing.

Alistair stared. "So . . . I'm _not_ in trouble?"

"If you had intentionally taken up the bann's time, that would have been one thing," Eamon said. "But I have it on Jothis's own authority that you did not. My guests are free to talk to whom they like." There was a line between Eamon's eyes that told Alistair he still wasn't overly enthusiastic that Bann Jothis had wanted to talk to the bastard of Redcliffe. Alistair looked back down at his shoes before the arl saw his frustration. As he'd got bigger, he'd started to notice how he often made the arl uncomfortable and guilty.

_I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Sorry for breathing. Sorry I exist. I know it's inconvenient, how me walking around drags down the reputation of the super honorable arl of Redcliffe. _

Urso, older and sleepier than he used to be but still under Eamon's desk like always, whined. His tail thumped against the desk, he stood up heavily, and he walked over to Alistair before sitting right back down. Alistair reached over and ruffled his sharp, pointed ears, feeling the short, rough, doggy fur beneath his hand. Urso panted and licked his arm, trailing slobber.

"It's time you started to grow up," Eamon announced after a moment, rising himself. He bent over, opened a cabinet, and withdrew a small bundle. Livery, Alistair saw, like the servants wore. "Verral in the stables has been gracious enough to offer you an apprenticeship with him. A hostler's life is a comfortable, honest one, and it's a path I approve of for you." He held out the clothes to Alistair. Alistair took them, confused.

He realized he hadn't given a lot of thought to what he was going to do when he grew up. He'd had vague ideas of running away to sea or joining the army. Wasn't that what bastards did? Now suddenly he was supposed to work in the stables his whole life? It wasn't that he minded, exactly, Alistair decided. He liked animals, and horses were nice. So was Verral. But Eamon didn't really seem like he was asking if Alistair minded.

"I might like being a hostler. Maybe," Alistair said cautiously. "When will Verral want me to start apprenticing with him?"

"Oh, tomorrow will be soon enough. For today, the two of us thought you could try on your uniform and get settled into your new room."

"New room," Alistair said. He felt really stupid, just repeating what Eamon had already said, but he also felt like Sara the laundress's daughter had clocked him in the head with a dodgeball.

"Of course, your new room," Eamon said. "You wouldn't be half as much help to Verral if you had to trek out to the stables every morning and back every evening, and in the winters, it would be fairly uncomfortable, as well as inconvenient. Verral, Brinda, and a couple of our friends here have been working for the past few days to get your apprentice's cot all set up in the stables. Would you like to see it?"

The arl expected him to say yes. Alistair could tell. He nodded slowly, but he couldn't quite fight his nervousness. In a way, this felt almost worse than being in trouble. He hadn't been expecting this at all. "All right."

"Good," Eamon said, holding out his hand to Alistair with another smile. Alistair took it, clutching his new uniform close. Urso padded behind them. The sound of his breathing was comfortable; he didn't seem worried or upset at all. It was Eamon's smile that didn't seem quite real. For some reason, he seemed even guiltier and more uncomfortable around Alistair today than he usually did.

Eamon led him outside, across the grounds, and toward the stables. With every step, Alistair felt more and more like Eamon was leading him _away_—away from the house, away from his noble guests and the shame and awkwardness and trouble Alistair stirred up for him just by existing. His stomach started to feel funny. He wanted Anet, or Tess, or Dera.

_They work in the house_, he thought. _Will I even be allowed to see them anymore? _

Another horrible thought occurred to him then. "My lord, will I still have lessons with Arnel?" he asked. He teased the old man terribly, he knew, and it was naughty of him to do it, but he knew Arnel was proud of him too, and lessons were just starting to get really fun. When Arnel somehow jammed maths in with history—multiplying and dividing Orlesian and King Maric's troops—numbers got a lot more interesting. And building little towers so Arnel couldn't knock them down before measuring time by their shadows . . .

"You'll have new lessons now," Eamon was saying. "How to care for horses and tack, what physics to use when a mare gets sick, different ways to train the yearlings—I am certain you will enjoy them just as much."

Alistair didn't realize he had stopped walking until Eamon was tugging at his hand to get him to keep going. "Alistair?" Eamon asked.

He was being punished. He was too much trouble, too inconvenient, too obvious for a common bastard living under the protection of an arl. He couldn't get it right, no matter how hard he tried, and so now Eamon was taking his room away and taking his lessons away and hiding him where he couldn't be a problem anymore. _Or at least not as much of one._

Alistair panicked. "I—my lord, could I please keep up my lessons with Arnel? Please? I understand Verral will have duties for me out here, but—well, Arnel doesn't have other duties, does he? I know he's old and might want a rest—especially from me—but I promise, I'll try to be good for him. I won't take up too much of his time, or Verral's. I can come late on rest days, or after suppers, or—"

But Eamon was frowning. "Did you hope to be a scholar, Alistair?" he asked. "With your apparent love for running around, barking your shins on tree bark, and playing tag and ball with the other children, I had thought a more active life would be your preference. You know how to read and write and figure sums, which is a good deal more than most common boys learn, you know."

_You're ungrateful, child._ That was what Eamon was saying, and for all Alistair knew, he was right. He shouldn't have been born, but he had been, and Eamon had made him his ward and given him everything and set just a few rules. He'd been careless and stupid and hadn't been able to follow them, but there was so much more he wanted to know! Alistair bit his lip. "I know. I'm grateful, my lord, I am. I just—_would_ Arnel and Verral mind? Just _little_ lessons. Sometimes. Please."

Eamon seemed to think about this for a long time. Finally, he said, "I suppose you will have to ask Arnel and Verral about it. I give you my permission to do so. Still, for the time being—perhaps for a period of six weeks—I would like you to focus on your new role as Varral's apprentice. It won't do to keep looking backward when you are meant to move forward, Alistair."

"Do I have—" the words burst out before he could stop them. Eamon looked sharply at him.

"What was that?"

_Do I have to move forward? Like this? Right now?! _But Alistair shook his head. "Nothing, my lord. Thank you."

A long, gray tabby cat on the woodpile outside the stable sat up and stretched when she saw them coming. She blinked her hazel eyes at Urso, but she was too high for him to chase, even if he still liked to chase cats, which he didn't, and it was plain that she felt safe enough.

She was happy in the stables, anyway, and Alistair felt a little better, seeing her. "Hello, you," he murmured. Dogs played better games than cats did, and as a rule, they were much more sympathetic, but cats were such wonderfully confident, selfish things. Alistair didn't quite approve of them, but then, they weren't asking for his approval. And they did make him laugh. There were always cats out in the stables. If he was living out here now, maybe some of them would want to make friends.

The cat on top of the woodpile considered him, then turned her back, flirted her tail at him, jumped down off the woodpile, and sauntered off.

_Or maybe not. _Alistair slung his uniform over his shoulder and held the fingers Eamon wasn't holding out to Urso. The old dog trotted up to catch up with them and licked his fingers reassuringly.

Eamon led him into the stables. "Verral? Brinda? I've brought Alistair," he called.

A girl, really almost a woman, Alistair thought, dropped down in the dimness to land on her feet in front of them. She bowed deeply to the arl. "Good morning, my lord," she said. "I've just been making sure everything's ready. Be nice to have a kid around. Liven things up, you know?"

She put her hands on her hips and looked down at him. She wasn't nearly as tall as Eamon or Teagan, but of course she was taller than he was, with freckles and light brown hair in a braid down her back. "So, you're Alistair, are you?" she said. "Seen you around, of course. Heard you're a right holy terror. I'm Brinda. My pa oversees some of my lord's lands around here and he got me a place grooming here. Go home nights and rest days, so I don't stay here like you and Verral, but you'll see me most every day anyway." She held out her hand to shake, and Alistair took it. Of course, Eamon was sending him out here because he was a holy terror, as much as he tried to be good, but at least Brinda didn't seem to think that was a bad thing.

"I'm Alistair," he said. "It's good to meet you. I've never talked to a girl who wears trousers before." He glanced down at them, distracted, for the moment. They were tucked neatly into her boots and only slightly dusted in horse hair. Girls in trousers looked _different_ than boys did, he decided. It was odd, and he thought it was probably inconvenient when they needed to perform certain necessary duties, but he admired the way Brinda's trousers made her look—sort of neat and crisp and clean. Like she could handle anything.

Brinda smiled at him, amused. "What, never? Plenty of us around, I should say. You've never talked to a woman who works?"

"I have," Alistair protested. "Anet and Tess and Dera and the others do plenty of work in the castle, I guess." He looked around the stable. "Though it probably isn't the _same_ kind of work."

"Probably not," Brinda teased. "So, do you know all our babies here, or would you like me to introduce them?"

Alistair glanced apprehensively at the horses in their stalls around the stables. Some of them were monsters, almost twice as tall as he was. _And I'm supposed to help Verral train and control them?_ "I've seen some of them," Alistair hazarded. He pointed at a gray mare near the door. "That's Mistral. Bann Teagan's taken me with him on her sometimes. And of course I know Trident." That was Arl Eamon's big blue roan, his war horse, who had to be exercised special several times a week. "But—you probably know all of them a lot better. Could you tell me about them anyway?"

"Sure," Brinda smiled. "Come with me."

She took him around to each stall. There were full ten horses in the stables. Four of them, Brinda said, were working horses like she was a working woman. Eamon's retainers used them to work his lands, or he hired them out to tenant farmers for a larger portion of a season's profit. They were the monsters he had noticed, but Brinda said they were mostly quiet old things, calm and steady, even kind. Eamon kept Mistral, Teagan's childhood mount, for his use whenever he came to visit, though as bann he of course had his own, younger horses back at his estate now. He still liked to visit her, and she was a good influence on the other horses—a sort of nurse to all of them. Eamon had his own three—Trident as well as two others more suited to everyday riding and pack work, respectively—and he also kept two riding horses as a courtesy to guests whose own mounts might need a rest when they arrived. Brinda told Alistair all of their names and a few things about each of them—their favorite treats and some of the tricks the troublesome ones were most likely to play. Alistair liked her, and she made working out here sound comfortable and interesting. _Maybe it won't be _so_ bad._

"Where is Verral?" Eamon asked, as they completed the rounds.

"In his cabin next to the stables," answered Brinda. "His rheumatism was paining him this morning, with the damp and all. He did so much to help get the loft ready, but he was limping badly enough I told him to go home and rub some liniment into his legs or he wouldn't be any good to anybody. He's really looking forward to having you here," she added to Alistair. "I'm sure he'll be feeling more the thing later today."

Alistair shifted. It hurt, a little, that Verral hadn't even bothered showing up to say hello to him if he was supposed to be Verral's new apprentice. But Verral was older, and he'd been wounded in the wars against Orlais. Maybe he had needed to lie down a bit, especially if he'd been up in the loft getting things ready for Alistair all this time. Alistair snuck a glance at the ladder at the end of the stable row. He couldn't see anything of the loft yet except a limewashed railing around it and a lantern hanging from a hook in the rafters.

Eamon was still talking to Brinda. He didn't seem pleased about Verral, stroking his beard in the way he always did when he was annoyed but wanting to be nice about it. "His old wounds from the occupation do pain him from time to time. Very well. Tell him to come see me at the castle when he is feeling better, please."

Brinda bowed. "Certainly, my lord. Now, Alistair. Would you like to see your room?"

Alistair hesitated, then he nodded. He rubbed Urso's ears. The dog wouldn't be able to come up into the loft like he had sometimes snuck into Alistair's old bedroom in the servant's quarters. But he was curious about what everyone had been doing up there to lay Verral up in bed and make Brinda sound so excited. He'd been up there before, and it had just been a bare shelf—extra storage space for grain and hay for the horses.

Leaving Urso, he started down the stable row, climbed up the ladder, and stepped up onto the loft. Then he took a breath.

The old stable loft he had used to pretend was the crow's nest of a ship or a secret thieves' hideaway had been completely changed in the past few days. The grain and hay were gone, and now he saw that one of the empty stalls down the stable row had been built up into a new closet. The shuttered loft window had been left open to let in the daylight, in addition to the lamp hung from a hook in the rafters. By the wall, there was a hooked staff that would help him take the lamp down when he needed to.

The loft railing wasn't the only thing that had been limewashed a bright, clean white. The walls had been limewashed too. The pine of the rafters and floor had been left alone, but there was a fresh woven rush mat on the floor, and someone had been up here with pennyroyal, lavender, and rosemary. There was a broom in the corner, a small pine table and bench on one side, and a low, narrow bed on the other, under a shelf.

And the shelf—on the shelf was a cloth, bucket, and a dry basin; a wooden cup, plate, and fork; and four books. There was his copy of the Chant of Light, brought here from the bedroom in the castle, and three, clothbound new ones. Alistair ran his finger over the spines, his mouth falling open. He felt much less like he was being punished now. Eamon had bought him his own, personal copy of _Harter's Atlas_. And . . . he hadn't thought anyone knew he still snuck into the library to read that old book of Rivaini pirate stories. When Arnel had said he was getting too old for them last year, he'd stopped carrying them around with him. But Eamon hadn't been fooled.

Alistair didn't recognize the third book. Putting his new uniform down on the bed, he picked up the unfamiliar book, opened it, and saw several carefully drawn pictures of horses and descriptions of how to care for them. He put the book back on his shelf and sat down on the bed, smiling. They'd even brought the golem doll Eamon had bought for him in Denerim three years ago. He picked it up off the pillow and held it.

He looked back at Eamon, who had climbed up the ladder with Brinda behind him. "My lord, you had everyone do all this . . . just for me?"

Eamon relaxed a little. "I hope you will be comfortable."

Alistair looked around and let out a single laugh. The loft was about three times the size of his old servants' quarters bedroom. "I guess so." He ran his hand over the limewashed wall. "It's so pretty. I've never . . . I've never had a place just for me before." He knew that the cold stone room he'd lived in for almost as long as he could remember was just another standard room in the servants' quarters of Castle Redcliffe. There was nothing special or personal about it, and before that, he had shared a room with Cookie and Tess by the kitchens. He had certainly never been given anything as expensive, grown-up, and long-lasting as the books on his shelf right now.

"I should say not," Brinda chuckled, looking around with gentle envy. "I'll tell you what, Master Alistair, me and my little brothers and sisters would shed blood to sleep in a little loft as sweet and private as this here. Total war in the cottage. But the arl was particular enough about the arrangements. You're lucky to have such a friend. Say your thanks, now."

Alistair blushed and looked at his shoes. "Thank you, my lord," he said.

"You are welcome. Will you be all right here, do you think? I have other duties—"

"I'll be fine, my lord," Alistair said.

"Sure you will," Brinda seconded. "I'll leave you to change and get settled, and in a little bit, come down, and we'll see about teaching you how to oil and care for the tack, huh?"

Alistair looked at her then and wondered what had happened to _I'm sure Verral will be feeling more the thing later today. _He guessed she wasn't counting on that, and tried to smile. _At least Brinda likes me. _"All right," Alistair said. "Thank you."

"Sure," Brinda said again, cheerfully waving before starting down the ladder again. Down below, Alistair heard her opening a stall. "Come on, Posy girl," she said. "Let's get you out to pasture."

They had brought all the horses in special to meet him.

Alistair looked up at Eamon. The arl walked over and put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. "You are nervous," he said. "I understand. This is a great deal of change for you at once. But you're growing, Alistair. Believe me: this is for the best."

Alistair looked up at Eamon. He couldn't decide who Eamon meant it was best for. Alistair? Or Eamon himself? _Don't be ungrateful. This loft . . . I can't believe it. _The little table, the books, the herbs scattered over the mat. More room to himself than Brinda and a whole posse of her little brothers and sisters had, or commoners just like him all over the country. A position, if he learned well, in Eamon's own house, or another like it someday.

Eamon probably wasn't punishing him after all. Eamon was offering him a future here, when he grew up. But . . . he had to admit, now that Eamon was leaving, he felt a little small and alone, even with all the horses down below. He didn't know them well yet, after all. It didn't look like the stable cats would like him. And the broom and the wash basin and the hook for the lamp all said, as plain as anything: _you're on your own now, kid._ It made him proud, that Eamon thought he could look after himself. But he wasn't quite sure he _could_.

He reached up and squeezed Eamon's hand on his shoulder, trying to pretend he wasn't as nervous as Eamon knew he was. "We'll have lunch together later this week," Eamon said, "and you can tell me how you do."

"Then I guess I'll see you then," Alistair said. His voice wobbled, and he closed his eyes, feeling Eamon pull away, hearing the ladder creak as he climbed down. Leather pads after Eamon's boots as Urso followed the arl out of the stable.

Other boots, quicker, as Brinda walked back in, opened another stall. Alistair swallowed, stood, put his golem down again, and picked the uniform back up. It took him just a couple of minutes to change. The fresh, white and grey linen tunic, for spring, with the Redcliffe device printed large across the front, was still rough and scratchy against his skin, and the darker grey trousers were too long on him. He saw a pair of shiny black boots on the other side of the bed, and it took him almost as long to pull the stiff leather up around his calves as it had taken him to put on the whole rest of the uniform.

Alistair tugged at an overlarge trouser leg. _You've got room to grow_, Beca would say, if she saw him. _And with the way you're sprouting up, they'll be too small next autumn. Hush your complaining, and go bother someone else. _

She'd say it with a smile, but she would mean it too. It would be Tess who would take pity on him, get out her needle and thread, and make a few tucks to his new clothes so he didn't look absolutely ridiculous. Or trip, he supposed.

Could he still go wheedle Tess into helping him? Somehow, Alistair didn't think so. He lay back on his bed, staring up at the rafters. There were a few spiders up there, he thought. He probably wouldn't be able to reach their webs with his broom. A grown-up person probably wouldn't be able to reach their webs with a broom. The horses shifted below, and he heard a gentle _plop-plop-plop_ that was one of them taking care of . . . necessary duties. Despite the herbs strewn over the matting up here, the smell was everywhere. He wouldn't be able to get away from it.

_I'll get used to it, probably,_ he thought. _And at least it's nice and warm in here. Much warmer than in that drafty old castle._ He shifted to look at the books again, reminded himself of all the trouble Eamon had taken to fix up the loft, that Brinda had said she and her brothers and sisters would fight a total war to have as much space to themselves as he did.

Then he closed his eyes tight. He missed Urso. He missed _anyone_. He shifted on the bed. It smelled nice, like the herbs on the floor and unlike the rest of the stable, but it had been stuffed with straw instead of wool. He could tell.

_You're common, Alistair. Better get used to it: this is how common people live. _

He turned over. _Well. Not exactly, probably. _

So, he wasn't being punished. So, Eamon was giving him a future, whether or not it was one he would have picked out for himself. But every minute he was up here, Alistair felt like the limewash on the walls, the copy of _Harter's Atlas _and the Rivaini pirate tales, the herbs on the floor and everything were just Eamon saying sorry. _Sorry for kicking you out and shoving you out of the way. Here. Don't be upset. It's all right. It's all for the best._

For the best.

_Will I be any less embarrassing out here as Verral's apprentice than underfoot in the castle? _

Alistair felt like he knew the answer.

* * *

**A/N: I can't definitively say Alistair's childhood was like this before later developments. He actually doesn't elaborate an awful lot on it. But this feels right to me. Nothing that could be outright called abusive (yet), but a really **_**messy**_** relationship as a somewhat cold, calculating, politic man attempted to raise the son of a king, a boy he was actually (guiltily) fond of, in a way simultaneously worthy of his lineage and that would ensure he in no way came to the attention of anyone or grew to be anyone who could present any kind of threat to the legitimate heir and a blood relative. Lots of mixed signals for a mere child, who could certainly pick up on the ambivalence and anxiety of his guardian as well as anything that guardian said or did. **

**Leave a review if you've got something to say,**

**LMSharp **


	9. Leto: The Chance

**Characters: **Leto, OMC Domitian, OFC Shopkeeper, OMC Emerus, OMC Linden, OMC Declan, OFC Amila, mention of Varania, OFC Sulin, OMC Bellisti and family. Various unnamed OCs.

**Pairings: **Casual Declan/OFC, allusion to Declan/past others, Teased Leto/OFC

**AU Elements: **This may not be actually AU, as it's established Danarius is a liar, but young Leto lived in Ventus, across the channel from Seheron and not actually on it.

* * *

**The Chance**

**9:18 Dragon**

**Minrathous, the Tevinter Imperium**

Once upon a time, Ventus had been considered one of the jewels of the Imperium. As the closest city to Seheron, she had undoubtedly been diminished by the ongoing war with the Qunari, but the port and market was still a wonder. Even raised on a dye plantation in the hills, Leto had thought he knew old temples and cathedrals, academies and theaters, the smell of spices on a sea breeze, and the cry of half a dozen different tongues in the streets.

He had known nothing before Minrathous.

Grandeur was everywhere he looked. History was inescapable. The sun blazed on the beaten gold of statues of the old gods, twined about columns of sparkling granite and weathered marble. Women brushed by, or were carried on litters, dripping with scent and rustling in silks and brocades that would have taken half a harvest to dye in their intricate patterns. Leto could swear he heard ten different languages as he made his way through the old cobbled streets, and a dozen different accents for each one. Slave magicians turned tricks in the market for coppers, while such energy crackled from the great academies in the city center that his skin bristled, just passing by. At the entrance to one, two men in uniforms brought out a shrouded body—the unacknowledged sacrifice to some great mage's power.

It would be easy enough to disappear here, Leto knew. Stow away on one of the great ships in the harbor, bound for Rivain or Antiva or Orlais. Fade away into one of the numerous slums that dotted the back alleys and the more crumbling areas of the city. There were hundreds of thousands of people here, and no one important looked twice at a slave. He could vanish now before he changed masters once again and choose not to be a slave. Domitian had sent word ahead of him, but it was unlikely his new masters would bother to search for him, should he fail to arrive in what they considered the proper span of time.

The difficulty would not so much be in the vanishing as in surviving afterward. He had no magic, no marketable skills that the citizens of Tevinter could not get elsewhere for free. He knew no one. The unpleasant truth was that his best chance was the chance Domitian had bought for him.

It seemed like a lifetime since Domitian had given him his final orders back at the gymnasium—the sea voyage to Minrathous had not been an easy one. But in fact, it had only been a fortnight.

* * *

TWO WEEKS PREVIOUSLY

CARASTES

"What would you say, Leto, if I told you that I do not think you should muster out this summer?"

Domitian's expression was unreadable. Leto was confused. At fifteen winters, he was of age to join the next unit Domitian sent to the front of the war with the Qunari, but he had been prepared for his orders since autumn last year. While he was far from the tallest or the strongest of the gymnasium's students, he was quite possibly the fastest. He could best almost any other three students together, and sometimes more. His technique and tactic selection were perfect, and he had received extracurricular instruction in Qunlat, the trade tongue, and overland navigation. He had expected early assignment, in fact, probably as a scout or translator, and had hopes that he could maneuver from there to a position where he could improve his chances of survival.

Still, Domitian had been a patron, of sorts, through his years at the Dumastin Gymnasium. It was possible the man had his own plans for Leto's future, though there was no point in getting his hopes up until the master confirmed it. So, Leto only bowed. "I serve at the pleasure of the Imperium. As master of the gymnasium where I am assigned to do my training, in practice you are also my master, if not in deed. I do as you command."

Domitian's lips curved upward. "No slave I have ever known has had your talent for couching contumacy and condescension beneath a veil of technically unobjectionable diplomacy," he observed. "You are, for perhaps the first time in your life, technically incorrect. As of last week, I have bought out your contract, and as such, I am now your master in both deed and practice."

Leto's confusion heightened. So did the hope he was trying to suppress. "I wasn't aware that you were looking for a personal slave."

Domitian sat back in his chair. "I'm not. I get along quite well as I am, making use of the students as I have need and managing on my own as I do not. But, my boy, sending a fighter like you to the slave units in the war against the Qunari is a waste. You know it. I know it. The more I thought on it, the more I felt as though I were giving the order to grind a Trima sculpture to gravel for a road patch. I find I cannot do it. Buying out your contract was a bargain in comparison to the trespass against my aesthetic sense that sending you out as a common soldier would be." His eyes twinkled. "Especially," he added, "considering that as I am master of this school, as of yet, the Imperium only knows what you are through me. Your price had only gone up in regard to your age, and not in regard to the skills you have gained since you came to us."

Leto considered this. Finally, he asked, "If I am not to be your personal slave, Master, how is it that you wish me to serve you?"

Domitian stood then. He walked around Leto, sizing him up from every angle. "You are small for the warrior's ideal," he said, "though comparable with the mean for men of your race. But your form, your conditioning—it's perfect, and any master of arms can recognize as much, before you ever take up sword or spear. When you do—it's art, as I have said. It is my intention to sell you again to the master of the combat games in Minrathous. I have already sent a messenger ahead to him to indicate I will sell either for the price I paid for you—or for five percentage of your profits in gifts in the games, whichever he deems more appropriate after he has seen you. An elven fighter may be slightly unorthodox for the arena . . . but I think Emerus will take you."

Leto was quiet. Domitian was an enthusiast of the combat games, and over the years he had heard quite a bit about them. With roots in the dwarven Provings, the combat games had originally been established as a method of cultural outreach to traders after the Exalted Marches some four hundred years ago. against the Imperial Chantry had left the Imperium devastated. However, while the people of the Imperium had as much of a taste for spectacle as the dwarves did, the Chantry disapproved of blood sports and honor duels as a rule, and after four hundred years, the combat games had become quite distinct from the Provings still held in Orzammar and Kal-Sharok. The combat games were more peripheral in the Imperium, only really taking place in the capital, and rather than risking limb and occasionally life in the games themselves and forbidding the lower classes from participating, nobles in the Imperium instead preferred to sponsor fighters from the lower classes to fight on their behalf. The games had become exclusive to the wealthy and important, decadent and theatrical in nature, as much art form as blood sport, and Domitian had told him tales of nobles and magisters that fought one another by proxy—sponsoring champions in competitions rife with intrigue and import.

And now he was to be Domitian's champion? Not necessarily, he thought; his master was taking a more passive role—if this Emerus chose to reimburse Domitian for Leto's purchase, Domitian's involvement in the affair would end there, which would be simpler in some regards, as Domitian's duties kept him in Carastes for the majority of the time. Only if Emerus took the bait and chose to gamble by purchasing Leto for 5 percent of his takings in gifts—presumably on the assumption that Leto would be killed or maimed in the games and become useless as a fighter and that as such, he would be getting a bargain—only then would Domitian be viewed as Leto's patron, or one of them.

Domitian meant the bait to be tempting to Emerus, meaning there was a large chance that Leto could be killed or maimed in these games—or unpopular, perhaps. But Domitian did not think he would be.

"Well, boy, anything to say?" Domitian prompted him. There was a spark of excitement in his eyes, a desire, Leto thought, to be thanked and to look forward to the future together. But Leto was not certain he was grateful or that the future was something he was looking forward to at all.

"I am honored by your confidence in me," he said.

Domitian met his eyes. "But?" he prodded. "Speak freely, Leto."

"I'm not a showcase duelist," Leto said bluntly. "My training is to kill Qunari, not to entertain. And I'm not certain who would care to watch me fight. As you say, I'm just . . . me. An elf. I may be a poor investment."

Domitian smiled. "It's my hope that Emerus will think so. The backward fool from Carastes, too lazy and comfortable to fight a real war. Teaches little elf and peasant children and thinks he knows what they are looking for in the elite arenas of Minrathous's combat games." Amusement crackled under his voice. "They have trainers for the fighters in the games, boy. They teach combat techniques that aren't practical for war but are very beneficial to the physique, and pleasing to the spectators who go to the arena for entertainment. A fighter in the combat games is every bit as much of an athlete as he is a warrior. Weeks may pass between his scheduled fights in which he does nothing but train. And that you are an elf—" his eyes sparkled again— "you will be the underdog, always. Spectators will bet against you, as too small, too weak, too low to beat your human or dwarven opponents. When you win anyway, you will frighten them, anger them. Fascinate them. And the few of them intelligent enough to have bet on you will make out like _kings_."

* * *

MINRATHOUS

Leto turned onto the street both Domitian and the ship captain who had taken him from Carastes had described to him. It was the merchant's quarter of the city, and shops with goods from every corner of Thedas lined the streets. Their proprietors lined the streets as well, calling to freemen and women passing by to browse _their _books, sample _their _perfumes, buy _their_ oranges all the way from Antiva. Leto stopped to examine some of the premade clothes, comparing the work on display to the work his mother and sister had done once for Bellisti and his grasping, ill-tempered wife, lying brat of a daughter, and bitch of a mother-in-law.

Did his mother and sister still sew for the Bellistis? He didn't know. He hadn't seen either of them for three years, hadn't heard from them apart from a vague, word-of-mouth message Bellisti's hoarded coin and a reward from Domitian had bribed from a Ventus merchant over a year ago that all was well with them. The merchant had offered no details, no special word from his mother or Varania. Only an embroidered handkerchief from Sulin to prove he had truly seen and spoken with her. Varania might have a lover or a husband by now, a child of her own even. Was he an uncle? His mother might have died. Either she or Varania might have been sold in the months since he had last heard from them.

Leto looked at the clothes until the suspicious storekeeper shooed him away. "Plot your thefts and mischief someplace else, knife-ear! Go back to your master or your gutter or what have you, and stop crowding out the paying customers!"

Leto continued down the street. His mother had never cut any pattern so elegant, he decided, but the fine styles obscured inferior stitching and embroidery, and nothing he had seen so far had shone like the Bellistis' cloth when Verry was done with it.

Then, there it was: a medium-sized stone building set apart by itself, with wide, arched windows, an open wooden door, and a sign depicting two crimson-armored warriors facing one another on a pale grey field. Not one of the arenas, auditoriums, or amphitheaters where the combat games were held, but a school where they trained and barracked some of the fighters.

Leto walked in the open door. He heard the clash of metal ringing through the stone of the entryway and followed it toward a dirt courtyard. "Good. Good. Mind your feet. Fully extend the arm. Sword hand never higher than your blade over shoulder level. Declan, now you're hyperextending. Break!"

The clashing stopped, and Leto walked back out into the light. To the left, there were several mannequins of iron and wood in a line, with vital hits marked on them in red paint. On the right wall of the courtyard was a rack of weapons, from long spears suited to cavalry charges to daggers and throwing knives. Several were wooden, or had blunted edges. But several were sharp.

In the center of the courtyard were three humans. There was a dark and wiry man of perhaps twenty-five, in light battle leathers and armed with two long knives, with a blue tattoo like a ring around one eye, and covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He faced another man, probably just a few years older than Leto, with a short sword in his right hand and an iron-weighted wooden cudgel in his left. This man wore light mail, and a yellow horsetail poked out from beneath his helm behind him that indicated he was possibly of Southern origins. The third man was obviously the instructor. He was short, shorter than Leto himself, but twice as broad. His sleeveless leather jerkin left his muscled arms exposed, and his iron gray beard and hair, flecked with white, was cut neatly short with a soldier's precision. His gray eyes were sharp and cold and flicked to Leto now.

"What is it, son?" he asked in the crisp, clear voice that had been giving the orders before.

Leto bowed. "I'm looking for Emerus, master of this school and honored arbiter of the Games."

"I'm Emerus."

Leto nodded. "My name is Leto. My lord Domitian, master of the Dumastin Gymnasium in Carastes, believed you might like to purchase my contract for the games. I believe he sent a message ahead of me?"

The older, darker fighter barked a laugh. Emerus gave him a quelling glance and started pacing around Leto, much like Domitian had done many times before.

"How old are you, Leto?"

Leto stood at attention, looking straight ahead, as he'd been taught. "I'm fifteen, sir."

Emerus hummed. "Young," he muttered, "but yes, I see it. In the posture, shoulders, thighs. Lean, built for speed not power . . ." He stopped circling Leto. "What's your weapon, boy?" he rapped out. "Melee, not range."

"I'm proficient with the spear, with two-handed greatsword, and with shortsword and shield—buckler, heater, or kite."

Emerus's eyebrows lifted. "Proficient." He let out a huff of air, then jerked his head toward the wall. "Well? Show me."

Leto gazed at the master, then nodded, walked over to the wall of weapons. He laid his bag down against the wall. Leto selected a weighted wooden practice stave, around 2.4 meters long. Long enough to give him a decided range advantage over any attacker, light enough he would still be able to move quickly. He felt the hardness of the shaft—fired so as not to break with a cut even from a two-handed greatsword.

Then he walked out to the center of the courtyard, saluted Emerus, and began a series of exercises. Blocks, sweeps, thrusts in a drill sequence they had taught at the gymnasium. The practice stave whistled through the air. He hit each stroke precisely as he wished to, thrusting and extending with his entire body, building to a deadly rhythm, inserting rapid, flicking feints now and again once he had built it that would devastate a slow or stupid opponent.

The dark, older fighter had been smiling when Leto began. Slowly, the smile slid from his face, and he became intent on Leto. The younger Southerner, conversely, began _to_ smile, leaning back on one leg with a growing expression of honest admiration. Emerus's face remained unreadable throughout.

Finally, he called, "Halt!"

Leto halted.

Emerus made him demonstrate similar sequences with both greatsword and sword and shield, and then, when Leto himself was sweating slightly, he nodded at the elder of the two fighters. "Linden. Bastard sword and heater. Leto, the spear again. Let's see how your pretty parade ground technique holds up live."

"Yes, master," the dark man with the daggers said, bowing and going to the wall to put up his knives. Leto went to retrieve the practice spear. He was thirsty. But Emerus hadn't asked him if he wanted a drink or told him that he could take one.

He returned to the center of the courtyard, with Declan now standing well back with Emerus, only to see that Linden, his opponent, had selected a steel sword from the wall to match his unedged yew practice staff. The edge was blunted, true, but Linden's weapon was still more brutal by design than Leto's, if not necessarily in practice. As Linden saw him notice the disparity, he gave Leto a cold, hard smile. Leto glanced at Emerus, but the old man's face remained impassive, as though he saw no difficulty whatsoever. "Begin," he said crisply.

Linden attacked immediately, rushing to take the offensive and close the distance between the two of them. Leto sprang to the left and thrust back at once, hard, toward Linden's right side, under blade and shield, at his exposed thigh. Linden pivoted and barely caught the thrust on the edge of his shield, so that Leto's spear slid past him. They disengaged, and Linden stood back, assessing Leto through narrowed eyes.

Leto knew that look of anger and surprise, that edge of apprehension beneath it. His first eighteen months at the Dumastin Gymnasium, the other trainees had expected him to be weaker than he was—because he was young; because he was smaller than some of the others, or had been; because he had never fought prior to his instruction at the gymnasium; because he was one of the elves and therefore had to be better suited to the ranged weapons. When he proved to be more difficult to defeat than they anticipated, they grew angry. They grew afraid. They grew foolish.

"What was your master thinking, sending you to disgrace the Games, little rodent?" Linden demanded. "Too pampered and pretty to die on the horns of the Qunari? You won't die any prettier here."

Leto darted in and took back the offensive, and from then on, there was no talking. Leto didn't once get past Linden's shield. But Linden never disarmed him, didn't land a single blow. He never even closed. Linden's face started burning a deep, ugly puce as they fought and he continued to fail to find an opening or gain any advantage over Leto at all. Finally, Emerus called, "Halt!"

Linden and Leto broke apart, panting, and Linden threw his sword and shield down in disgust, stalking off to a water pump by the entrance to the building without leave. Leto stood at attention instead, waiting.

Emerus looked him up and down again, still expressionless, and then said simply, "You'll do. I'll send word to your former master today about his terms. Welcome to the combat games, Leto. Declan. Show our newest fighter to the quartermaster and help him requisition some personal gear, and then take him to the bathhouse for a bath and a massage. I'll see you both at supper later. Dismissed."

Declan bowed, and in broad and harshly accented Tevene, said, "Yes, Master."

Leto bowed as well, returned to the weapons wall and racked his practice stave, and picked up his pack. He followed Declan past the glowering Linden, whose mouth was still dripping from the water pump.

Declan nodded at the pump. "Have some," he suggested. "Quite a lot of exercise today."

Without speaking more, Leto knelt by the water spigot and pumped water into the dipper, hanging on a fixture to the pump. He had three dippers full before he hung it up again, and then he pumped another gush of water over his head and hair, letting it rush over his hot face and finger-combing his hair back into some kind of order.

Then he stood. "_Fereldan_?" he guessed, slipping into the trade tongue.

Declan beamed. "_You speak the common tongue?_"

"_It was considered a useful skill where I come from,_" Leto confirmed. "_I learned some as a page to my first master, a farmer and merchant, and so they taught me more when I came to the Dumastin Gymnasium._"

Declan was delighted to find Leto near-fluent in the language of his birth, in which he came across as quite a different person than when attempting his broken Tevene. In the tongue of the Imperium, Declan seemed the very barbarian that was, he explained, often his public persona in the games. _"Clubs and axes_," he laughed. "_War paint._ _Once or twice they've even found me a dog to fight with. No real mabari, but this mean old, ugly mastiff that's ready enough to rip out a few throats. Real mabari are too smart to have much use for Vints—um, sorry. No offense._"

In his own tongue, Declan was quick and friendly, with a certain fondness for colorful figures of speech that stretched Leto's comprehension skills to the limit, though Declan was full of praise for his ability—in the trade tongue and in the arena.

Declan was forced to revert to Tevene once they had arrived at the quartermaster's office. The woman in charge of the school's supplies was a gray-haired and severe-looking specimen called Amila, and told Declan to "kindly keep to the language of civilization, if you please," as soon as they walked in. Declan did so, cheerfully enough, flirting with the austere old woman outrageously in his stilted, fumbling Tevene, and pulling faces at Leto behind her back as she bustled about getting linens for Leto's bunk and other such essentials.

She was cold toward Leto at first, taking him for a Dalish from the South, Leto thought, but when Declan explained Leto was from a gymnasium in Carastes instead, she warmed somewhat. She measured him for a new uniform, using a knotted cord to gauge his height, the width of his shoulders and hips, and the inseam of his arms and legs. She noted down each measurement in a ledger on her desk and put the cord away.

"Well," she said, hands on her hips, looking at him speculatively, "with a face and eyes like that, you shouldn't have a lot of trouble playing it primal and exotic, anyway. All the grand ladies will just sob over you."

"The ladies may not cry," Declan told her. "You should see the boy with spear. Fought Linden to a draw, after many lonely demonstrations!"

Amila wrinkled her nose at Declan's imperfect Tevene, but let it pass without comment. "Did he now? That isn't easy to do, young man. Linden's one of our career fighters. He'll hate someone like you for humiliating him."

"I didn't humiliate him," Leto disagreed. "I couldn't beat him at all."

"If you came in fresh off the street and fought Linden to a draw, he'll have seen it as your victory." Amila said flatly. "I would watch your back. Linden can hold a grudge, and he has some friends in high places that might be willing to put the fix in for him if he's loud enough about a grudge against you."

"Lovely," Leto muttered. "I was wondering if I would manage to go the whole day without making any enemies."

A smile cracked across Amila's face. "Oh, you _are_ fun, aren't you?" She put a hand on the pile she had been assembling for him on her desk. "I'll see the basics are sent to your bunk. Anything you've got already in there?"

"Only a canteen of water and a change of clothes," Leto answered. "And a few pennies for a hot meal if I needed one—the gift of my master and the ship's captain that brought me over."

Amila pursed her lips. "Mmm. They were confident, weren't they? What were you supposed to do if Emerus didn't take you, then? He doesn't accept everyone, you know." She made a last note in her ledger, then stepped away, gesturing for Leto to precede her into the other half of the room—a rudimentary armory, smaller than the one they had had at the gymnasium, but also more varied, and with better weapons.

"Now," she said. "When you train with Emerus, you'll use the weapons in the yard, and if a patron or the host of a game expects you to use a certain weapon, then that's what you'll use. But you may pick out your own armor from our stock here, and up to three weapons to train with on your own time. It's pretty basic equipment; you may be gifted better after your first fight, or be able to purchase it for yourself."

Leto blinked, looking back at Declan for confirmation. "I . . . we're allowed to purchase our own weapons?"

Declan roared with amusement and pounded him on the back. "'_Course you are! Didn't your master tell you how this works?_"

"Tevene, if you please," Amila reminded him testily.

"Yes, ma'am, sorry ma'am," Declan agreed, with nearly convincing contrition. "Forgive me. Life won't be worth living you don't." But his eyes sparkled, and when Amila turned away, mollified, he made another face at Leto, who kept his own face absolutely impassive.

Declan and Amila gave to Leto to understand that Emerus housed and provided for the students he sent to the combat games here. In return, he kept the scheduling fee whenever anyone set up a competition for one or more of his fighters, along with 10 percent of any coin his fighters were gifted. As Domitian had told Leto, a fighter could have other patrons—one or many—individuals who sponsored them to the games and might gift them with arms, armor, or other privileges, and in turn take a cut of whatever was bet on their fighter and another percentage of the coin they were gifted at fights. But most fighters, Declan told him, kept at least 60 percent of the coin they were gifted in the games, along with any nonmonetary gifts, which could be very valuable in their own right. And, while fighters could not bet on their own fights, they were perfectly free to bet on others, and as fights in the games were only rarely to the death, if a fighter in the combat games was skillful, entertaining, and avoided the ire and intrigues of some of the more sadistic nobles, he could hope to be released by a pleased patron or buy out his own contract in a few years and retire with a pretty little fortune to boot.

"I buy out my contract soon," Declan boasted. "Three years in games, since only a little older than you. Not best, but strong enough. Fun to watch. Emerus say he will let me go after two seasons. I go back to Mother, in Denerim. She . . . very surprised I still live, after running away on Rivaini ship so long ago! She is being even happier to see all my gold! She retire also. We buys big house and live happy together always."

"I hope you do," Amila said, "but if Leto here hopes to do the same, he will need to choose the proper weapons and armor, both for fighting and to make an impression when he fights."

Despite her earlier disdain when she had believed he was Dalish, Amila urged him toward armor reminiscent of the Dalish, while Declan shared his opinion that Leto should not wear anything that would slow him down too much in a fight. Amila wanted to give him a long, grey iron greatsword to practice with— "Nothing is so dramatic, boy, and if you can handle it, I think the contrast would be striking." Declan, however, suggested a buckler and something in between a dirk and a military short sword—a combination that would allow for a measure of flexibility and creativity in the games.

In the end, Leto took the greatsword but left the short sword and shield. Instead, he picked up another yew-shafted spear—about the same length as the one he had sparred with in front of Emerus, but with a long, wavy veridian point that would both cut and thrust and a counterweight on the butt that both balanced the weapon and would serve as a deadly bludgeon in its own right.

Outside of military formations, the spear favored a dynamic, daring, and aggressive style of combat. It didn't offer the dismembering opportunities of a sword or an axe, but it offered a better range than any other melee weapon—a decided advantage when Leto would be smaller than almost any opponent he faced—and a quicker strike.

Leto hefted the weapon in his hand, taking a few steps into familiar stances to test the weight. "This one, I think," he told Amila. "And a smaller that I can practice throwing."

Both Amila and Declan had gone quiet, watching him. "Yes," Amila said after a moment.

"And this," Declan said suddenly. He lifted a peculiar piece of armor from the shelves. It fell somewhere between a cowl and a helmet. The inside was hardened, ridged leather, weighted and designed to be pulled on over the head and drape over the shoulders, and to fit securely to the head and to the back and sides of the neck. But the outside of the helm was rough, shaggy fur—the ruff, scalp, and upper fanged jaw of a great, snarling wolf. "Wear this."

"Yes," Amila said again, thoughtfully, looking in between Leto and the helm, then shooting Declan a glance of respect. "If you can carry it off, it would add just the right touch of threat, I think."

"If," Leto repeated, with a touch of irony, looking at the hideous thing in bemusement. He looked up at Declan, almost a full head taller than he was. "Do you think _I _could manage it?"

But Declan exchanged a glance with Amila. "You have not seen you on the sands, my friend," he said, "or with spear in your hand." With one hand, he pushed the helm down roughly over Leto's head and adjusted it so it settled and faced forward. He stood back with Amila to take in the effect. Leto felt foolish, and he pressed his lips together, matching them both stare for stare, and adjusted his grip on his spear.

"I don't know about this," he said. "I feel like a performing animal."

Declan's lips quirked, but it was Amila who answered. "Animals are popular in the combat games. Trust me, if you wear that helm, make it a part of who you are when you fight, the Fereldan will have given you an advantage. Not only will it give you an aura of menace and mystery you would otherwise have to work much harder to establish, the nobles will particularly appreciate the allusion to the heathens' Fen'Harel."

"Fen'Harel?" Leto repeated, frowning.

"Dalish god," Declan explained, grinning at Amila. "I did not think of that! Fen'harel is trickster, almost—" he struggled for the words and reverted to common for a moment. "S_weet Andraste, how do I say this_—demon," he tried. "_A nightmare, a god-killer_. _The Dalish back home swear by him—the Dread Wolf. Can't do much better than playacting as _him."

"So I'm the elven nightmare," Leto said, with some distaste. He took off the helm and stared at the yellowish fangs gleaming in the lamplight. "So be it, I suppose."

"Excellent," Amila said, satisfied, taking the helm and spear to put with the other things to send to Leto's new barracks. I'll see if I can't get you a short fur cape to wear with it. Now, unless there's anything else?"

"No, princess," Declan told her. "Orders to take Leto to baths." He gave Amila an extravagant bow, and she sniffed at him, but the corners of her lips twitched up.

"Barbarous rogue. Off with you both! I've more than enough to do here." She shot Leto another look. "Welcome to the combat games, fighter."

Declan gestured to Leto and led him out of the room, taking two hanging medallions off pegs by the door as he did. Each medallion had a raised seal that matched the sign above the school on it. Declan explained the bathhouse managers would press the seal in wax to keep a record that they had gone in and present Emerus with the bill later.

Declan led Leto out into the Minrathous streets again, now hot in the late afternoon sun. There was less pedestrian traffic, and fewer store proprietors called out around them. Instead, store patrons lounged in the shade, eating fried sweetbreads or toasted fresh bread and tomatoes and refreshing themselves with different-flavored fruit juices. The smell of spices on the air was even stronger at this time of day, and Leto's stomach grumbled.

As they walked, Declan told Leto more about his life, how as a boy from Denerim, about Leto's own age, he had hopped on a Rivaini trade ship that had later been taken by slavers. Things could have gone very badly for him, he admitted, especially as the slaver captain and overseer had picked him out as a troublemaker. "_But the captain's daughter, the lovely Anys, she has a thing for big, blond barbarians, right? So she got her father to try selling me to the combat games, and right enough, Emerus takes me on._" That had been three years ago now, Declan told him. He had fought in arranged contests and tournaments eleven times, and while he did not have a regular patron, he had received enough favor when his fights were announced, and afterward, that he felt confident about his future. He had been defeated four times, he admitted, and been out for several months three seasons ago with a nasty arm wound, and, before that, with a leg strain. Again, he had been lucky. Emerus, he said, was a good teacher, the best of anyone who ran a school or moderated fights in the combat games, and Amila kept Emerus's fighters well-supplied.

"_She doesn't have more than a few words of the common tongue_," Emerus told Leto, "_which can get interesting when it's time for her to trade for supplies with anyone but a Vint. I help her out a bit, and you could probably do even better. She's a pinched-face old broad, but about as big a fan as any noble you could meet, and dead loyal to the school. She's been around a few years, too, so she knows what's what._"

They turned onto another street, and another grey stone building rose up in front of them, this one with widely spaced, rectangular columns, and steam and perfume rising from windows without panes. An elf girl a little older than Leto, in a uniform of pale pink and powder blue dyed linen tunic and trousers, was standing behind a podium.

"Declan!" she greeted them. "Lovely to see you again. And who's your friend?"

"New fighter," Declan told her. "Leto, from Carastes. Emerus wants bath and massage for him. Me too. Is Tola in?"

The hostess smiled at the big Fereldan's hopeful expression. "She is, but you mind yourself, you big lummox! She's _working_ today. You let her do her job until she's off work."

Declan laughed at her. "Jealous, little bird?"

"Oh, go on," the hostess chided him, waving him away and tucking a dark curl behind her ear. But she blushed.

Leto couldn't help looking back at her as he followed the still-laughing Declan into the bathhouse. This wasn't like how he had thought it would be at all. Declan's optimism, his familiarity with Amila and the clearly not unreceptive bathhouse hostess, the way he said things were with gifts. He sat in a large communal tub, heated by natural springs beneath the city, listening to Declan talk and joke with healthy, well-fed slaves of wealthy merchants and shipwrights in a lyrical pidgin mishmash of many different languages, and began to see exactly what it was that Domitian had bought for him. More than a reprieve from the spears of the Qunari. What Domitian had bought for him was life—a life of prosperity, and perhaps even freedom someday—if he could take it.

Doubtless, that had not been his former master's intention. To Domitian, Leto was just a horse in the race, a gamble he had taken to place his own fighter, for the first time, in the combat games, to play in the intrigues of the mages and nobles of Minrathous, and, perhaps, to advertise the gymnasium.

What mattered was that he had chosen _Leto_ to be that fighter, given _Leto_ this chance.

A tall, beautiful, laughing girl came to fetch Declan for his massage. Tola, Leto supposed. Her red hair tumbled down the creamy shoulders her pink and blue uniform was already slipping down, and she pulled Declan naked out of the bath and kissed him full on the lips, and Declan was laughing as well, and the other bathers were calling out crude, good-natured jokes at the pair of them, and no one was acting as if either of them would be whipped later for their behavior at all.

Then another girl, smaller, with silky, perfumed black hair cut level with her chin and soft brown eyes was coming for him, and her hands were smooth and firm, and she looked him up and down, ducked her head, and smiled. Leto's head spun, but he smiled back at her, as best as he could, accepted the towel she offered him, and followed where she led.

* * *

**A/N: I really am pretty nervous about the storyline I'm giving Leto here. Because we're given so little about Leto's canonical past and there has not yet been a DA game to show us what actual day-to-day life in the Imperium is like, I'm having to wholly invent a lot of stuff to fill in the gaps between the few things we do know. I've chosen to borrow a lot from Roman and Mediterranean culture to do that, as the Imperium is already somewhat analogous to fallen, reduced Byzantium. **

**While Leto needed a venue in which to eventually compete before nobles for a perceived honor and a boon, the combat games aren't meant to be perfect analogues for the gladiator games held in Rome before the popularization of Christianity. For one thing, I don't think Andrastianism would hold any more truck with to-the-death blood sports than Christianity did. The combat games of Minrathous have similarities to the gladiator contests—slaves, convicts, and foreigners of exceptional strength and physicality are held in "schools" that train them for fights against one another or against beasts, and the fighters can be released by the masters of their schools or by noble patrons into retirement. I believe Roman gladiators, while still enslaved, could also amass their own fortunes out of the gifts they received and through judicious gambling. However, my combat games are very much a niche, elitist sport rather than entertainment for the masses. They borrow a little from dwarven Provings (nobles can engage fighters to resolve their own petty squabbles by proxy, or just to humiliate one another), and from popular wrestling (where fighters take on a character and some fights may be staged just for the show of it). In addition, while I believe some Tevinter nobles like to see combat to the death, I also think even the Imperial Chantry would disapprove if this happened often, and fighters represent a substantial investment of time and resources, so that the masters of the training schools they attend have an interest in keeping them fit and healthy. These individuals are meant to be athletes and political pawns more than they are to be any kind of sacrifice.**

**The bathhouse and massage Leto and Declan attend in the last part of this chapter also borrows from Roman culture (though of course public bathing exists and has existed in other cultures around the world as well). Tola, the bath attendant and masseuse Declan is casually involved with, is **_**not**_** intended to be a prostitute so much as a fun-loving common woman with rather more open ideas about intimacy than you would see in someone of Cassandra or Gwyn's class, for example. Emerus wouldn't send his fighters to that kind of bathhouse. However, Roman-style public bathhouses did get a reputation for fostering that sort of thing. The Church shut many of them down in the Middle Ages for just that reason, and as a matter of fact, the Italian word **_**bordello**_**, commonly used for houses of prostitution, stems from the word for bathing! **

**Leave a review if you've got something to say,**

**LMS**


	10. Tirrian: Stories about Elves

**Characters: **F!Tabris (Tirrian), Soris Tabris, OFC Cressyd, OFC Jainey, OFC Ereal, OMC Tomald Tabris (Cyrion's brother and Soris's father), Adaia Tabris, Cyrion Tabris, mention of others

**Pairings: **Cyrion/Adaia Tabris

**AU Elements: **None

* * *

**9:19 Dragon**

**The Denerim Alienage, Denerim, Ferelden**

Once a month, the sisters from the Exalted Pyre Chantry came to the alienage. It was the best day of the month. The sisters dressed in long dresses—Mum called them robes—fancier than anything else Tirrian ever saw, and in such rich colors of red and pink, so much prettier than any color anything they had was. The sisters brought tunics and trousers in the summers and blankets and coats and boots and scarves in the winters—nothing was new-new, but it was all new to whoever got it. It was fun to look through the things the sisters brought, even though Dad almost always made Tirrian leave them alone for the families that needed them more.

The sisters also brought an enormous cauldron of stew when they came, and everyone in the alienage who wasn't working would gather around the vhenadahl to have a bowl. Everyone would bring what they could—bottles of wine or whiskey they had been saving, a loaf of fresh bread, a cake, some cookies, some fish caught down by the river or the harbor. And everyone would talk, and laugh, and argue, and generally make a lot of happy noise, and share everything they had with one another to go with the sisters' stew, which usually had the only beef, chicken, or sausage Tirrian got all month in it.

And the sisters brought toys and games—jacks, and hoops to trundle, and ropes to skip with alone or in twos or threes or fours, and chalk to draw on the cobbles with. Some of the sisters would even play with them, smiling and laughing just like Tirrian and the other kids did, hugging and kissing them and calling them "poor dears."

On the days when the sisters came to the alienage, Tirrian would go to the square before almost anyone else, and stay later, and those were the best times. When just a few of the neighbors were around—grown-ups who would have to go to work soon, early-risers, and maybe just one or two kids—the sisters would let Tirrian sit with them, and they would tell her stories.

Of course, Valendrian told good stories too. Sometimes. But he was always too busy to tell very many, and anyway, he never told stories like the sisters did. Desperate marches to strike down the evils of Tevinter. Brave knights in shining armor and heroic tournaments! The sisters had told her about Aveline, the first female chevalier of Orlais. They had told her about Calenhad the Great and the founding of Ferelden, and Lady Shayna's tragic love for him that had destroyed his rule. They told her about the long years of the Fereldan Resistance to Orlais, and how King Maric had taken back Calenhad's throne and kicked all the Orlesians out of the country in disgrace. And, of course, they told her all about Andraste, her songs to the Maker and the Maker's revelations to her, and her fight to free the slaves and spread the Maker's song all across Thedas, only to be betrayed by her husband and die to flames and sword. The sisters' favorite stories were the ones about Andraste.

Tirrian loved them all. One day, she stayed very, very late, after almost everyone had gone, called in by their mums, dads, aunts, uncles, or grandparents to go down and bathe in the river or go help with supper, except for two girls that Tirrian didn't know very well still drawing on the ground with chalk. But Tirrian's mum and dad's jobs right now both kept them late in the city, so she had a little extra time, as long as Soris stayed with her. He was supposed to take her back to Uncle Tomald and Aunt Lindra's to stay until Mum came back that night, and he was ready to go, but Tirrian begged him to stay with her, because he was her cousin and her best friend. And because he was her best friend, he said yes, even though he was older and he could have made her go with him.

The sisters were packing all the toys up into their sack again when Tirrian came back. "Please," Tirrian said to Sister Cressyd.

The sister, a tall woman with a round face and bright blue eyes, and soft, light brown hair in a knot behind her head, turned. Her dimples deepened when she saw Tirrian. "Tirri Bright-Eyes," she said, reaching out, like the sisters always did, to stroke Tirrian's hair where it shone in the last light of the sun. Tirrian didn't really like anyone but Mum or Dad to touch her hair, but at least when the sisters came close enough to touch her hair, they didn't mind if she reached out and rubbed their soft sleeves between her fingers. "Still after another story? Soris, you're a fine cousin to our girl."

Soris rolled his eyes. "T'least Dad won't be worried. He'll know just where we are." He pulled out his pocket knife and a block of wood he was practicing his carving on, sat down in the sun, and started whittling.

"That's a nice little knife," Sister Cressyd told him. "Where did you get it from?"

"Dad," answered Soris, without looking up. "He says if I get good enough at fancy work, we might be able to sell his c'mishuns for more."

"That's right, your father is the woodworker," Sister Cressyd recalled. "He probably has much bigger knives than that in his shop."

Soris looked up. "I'm not 'lowed to touch them," he said, "and he locks them up before closing."

"I suppose that's all right then," Sister Cressyd said. "But do be careful, dearie. Knives aren't toys, and you're still so little, to have one."

Tirrian decided they had better talk about something else. "But anyway, Sister Cressyd, I made something for you and Sister Jainey and Sister Ereal and everyone." She pulled the cloth-wrapped little loaf out from under her tunic, where she'd kept it safe for hours, waiting for a time when the sisters would be more or less alone. She'd hoped it would be that day, that Mum or Dad wouldn't have to take her to the Exalted Pyre Chantry the next day. For some reason, the sisters never seemed as happy to see them outside of the alienage. They were always polite, but some of the other humans weren't.

"What's this?" Sister Cressyd asked, the dimples that had vanished talking to Soris reappearing now. "Jainey, Ereal, come see."

The other sisters—an older human with very short, dark brown hair, and a sister who was a little short and plump and hugged them more often than any of the others—came over to see. Cressyd unwrapped the little loaf.

"It's cinnamon raisin, with cranberries," Tirrian told them. "Mum showed me. It's my favorite, but Mum says it has to be a sometimes-food. She makes it for the neighbors for Satinalia and sometimes First Day, but she said I could make some for you, to say thanks."

"Maker bless you, child," Sister Jainey said. "We don't do this for the thanks."

"I know, but I thought you might want something, on your way back to the Chantry. It's nice. You'll like it!"

Sister Cressyd wrapped the little loaf back up again. "I'm sure we will, and I thank you for thinking of us."

"You might have told me you were making some of Aunt Adaia's cranberry raisin bread," Soris muttered.

"If I had, you would have pinched it, and then there would have been none for the sisters. So there," Tirrian told him. To Sister Cressyd, she added, "But please, sister, if you could tell us just _one_ more story."

"Tirrian, I'm hungry," Soris complained. "It's getting dark. Can't we catch the elder tomorrow?"

"Please, Soris, it's not the same," Tirrian argued. "You _know_ it's not. You told him it's not, last time, after that story about the little boy who climbed to the stars up the vhenadahl; it wasn't _real_."

"I liked it," Soris remarked.

"So did I, but it's not the _same_," Tirrian insisted. "Plee-ease!"

Soris grumbled and rolled his eyes again, but shifted where he sat, getting more comfortable. Tirrian reached out and squeezed his hand, grateful.

"Hurry, Cressyd," Jainey urged. "We don't want to be leaving here after dark."

"Just a short story," Tirrian begged, "about elves!"

She had started to notice that almost every story the sisters told was about humans. Human armies, human knights, human kings and queens and Divines and mages and clerics. They were wonderful, exciting stories, about people and places and battles that had really been, but Tirrian had started to wonder where all the elves had been in them.

Sister Cressyd looked thoughtful. "Well, now, have you heard the story of Shartan, and how he led the elves to freedom and fought the battle of Valerian Fields with Our Lady?"

Tirrian was quiet, disappointed. It was Soris who answered. "Yes," He snapped his knife shut and put it and the block of wood back in his pocket as the sun dropped behind the high walls of the alienage. It wouldn't be really dark for a long time yet—but it was too dark for him to see by. "Tirrian, they've told us that one five times at least. Come on. They need to go, and so do we."

"Don't you know any other stories about elves?" Tirrian asked Sister Cressyd.

"I—your cousin's right, little Tirrian," Cressyd said, looking over at Sister Jainey and Sister Ereal. "It's time for us all to go home, I think."

"We'll do some reading, and see if we have some new stories next time," Sister Ereal promised. She reached out her arms, and Tirrian let the plump little woman hug her. "It would be a sin to stifle such avid curiosity, poor little dears."

"Thank you for the bread," Sister Jainey said to Tirrian, hoisting the empty cauldron onto the sisters' cart with Sister Cressyd. "Always a pleasure, child."

The sisters left, talking softly together. The boys were coming out now with the lights for the lamps, and Tirrian saw them, through the shadows, opening up the little loaf she had given them once more, and wrapping it up again.

She turned away and kicked at a loose cobblestone. The girls by the vhenadahl had gone away too, and Soris held out his dirty, sawdusty hand to her to lead her away too. Tirrian looked at it, ignored it, and wrapped her arm around his instead. Her eyes burned.

"I shouldn't have made that old bread at all," she muttered. "Or I should've made it for you, Soris. And I didn't even get any!"

Soris reached over with his other hand and patted hers in a reassuring kind of way. "Come on. They ate a big lunch like all of us, and they aren't little with hollow legs, like Dad says. They're grown up. They'll probably just eat it later. Or they'll share it with some others back at the Chantry. Sisters are s'posed to be generous, anyway."

"Maybe," Tirrian said.

"You still should've made some for me instead," Soris told her, tugging on the end of her hair now. "And if you don't next time, I'll be mad." He was quiet for a minute. "That old sister didn't like me having Dad's knife."

"Will Uncle Tomald be in trouble?" Tirrian asked.

"His stuff's all tools, not weapons," answered Soris. "Enough for maybe six people in the whole alienage, and he's got permits from the bailiff and everything." But he didn't sound very sure.

When they got to Uncle Tomald and Aunt Lindra's house, Tirrian's mum was already there, looking tired and sort of irritable. She came to Tirrian and kissed her. "What have you been about, dallying in the square? Your dad will want supper as soon as he gets in, and it'll be late enough as it is!"

"I was just giving the sisters the cranberry raisin bread!" Tirrian protested. "Soris was with me the whole time. And Dad won't be in for ages yet, so there!"

"Well, supper won't be cooked for ages yet, so _there_," Mum retorted. "Thanks, Tomald, Soris," she said. "We'll see you for supper on rest day." She kissed first Uncle Tomald, then Soris, and Tirrian hugged Soris goodbye.

"I better see you sooner," she told him. "Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Soris promised.

"Take care, Adaia, Tirrian," Tomald called after them.

Tirrian held onto Mum's hand as they headed back through the alleys toward their own house. "I hate Chantry days," Mum muttered. "Hearth fire cold and dark, and of course you won't have brought in any water for the pot—"

"I can do it now," Tirrian said quickly.

"With the sun dropping down any minute?" Mum asked her, though she smiled. "I'll not have you tumbling into the river and washing out to sea in the dark. We'll go together."

They worked together as the sun went down—going down to the river for water for the pot, kindling a fire in the hearth, tossing the ham bones and cabbage Mum had brought from market in with the pot for a broth. "Will you need help rolling the dough out for the bread, Mum?" Tirrian asked.

Mum ran her fingers through her hair in a distracted sort of way. Mum's hair was a little like Tirrian's, Tirrian always thought, though it was a darker gold than hers was, closer to brown. And it wasn't as long or soft. But it made Tirrian happy that she had hair like Mum's, anyway, because Mum was so beautiful and interesting-looking, with her skin the color of the vhenadahl and her fierce face. She didn't look like any other elf in the alienage. Tirrian looked like a _lot_ of other elves in the alienage, except for her hair, and maybe her eyes, a bit. "No bread tonight, Tirrian. Your father will pick up some more things in the market when he gets his wages tomorrow."

Tirrian looked at the pot on the hearth and the thin soup that was in it. Her stomach growled, and she looked down at her shoes. "I hate Chantry days too," she said, thinking of Sister Cressyd wrapping her loaf back up again.

Mum had been pressing out the aches in her back, weaving her fingers together to press the aches out of _them_. Now she looked at Tirrian, sharply. "What's that? Don't let my grousing rub off on _you_, sweetheart! You _love_ Chantry days!"

"Not anymore," Tirrian said, sitting on the floor and beginning to draw in the dirt there with her finger. She thought about it, then added reluctantly, "Not today."

"What happened?" Mum asked her. "Here, don't do that, you'll get all messy before supper. Make yourself useful, and go get my sewing basket, please."

"Messy anyway," Tirrian muttered rebelliously. "Chantry days are _always _messy." But she stopped drawing in the dirt, got up, and went over to the chest where Mum kept the mending and brought her basket to her. Then she got a piece of kindling and lit one of the lamps they only ever lit for Mum's sewing, and only sometimes then. Mum was squinting and pressing at her head, and she only ever did that when her head ached, along with all the rest of her, and when she was that way, sewing by just the hearth fire made things worse.

Then she sat down, right by Mum this time, pressing her head against Mum's knee. "Mum, do _you_ know any stories about elves like me?" she asked. "Exciting ones. Real ones. Not just make-believe."

Mum sighed. She lowered her sewing to her lap, and before she started up again, she moved her fingers through Tirrian's hair then, and it felt good, and right. "Stories about elves, hmm? I could probably tell one or two. They probably aren't as exciting as what you're used to. But real I can manage."

Mum took a deep breath. "I guess you probably know I'm not originally from the Denerim alienage like your dad, sweetheart."

"Lots of people aren't," Tirrian pointed out. "Aunt Lindra came from Highever to marry Uncle Tomald, and Kali's parents escaped from some awful Orlesian noblewoman to stay here after the war, she says."

"Right," Mum said. "But I come from a little farther away than Highever or Orlais. All the way from Antiva, if you'd believe it."

Tirrian looked hard at Mum, suspicious. "I've been to market with you and Dad. You don't sound Antivan."

Mum laughed. "Well, that will happen, after living among barbarians for nigh ten years," she teased. "When you're older, I might tell you the story of how I got here. It makes for a fine tale, but for now, imagine how it must have been for me, just sixteen years old and fresh off the boat, in an unfamiliar city and country, colder and rainier and smelling different than I was used to, and full of people that talked different, and looked different, and were more than a little bit suspicious of anyone that was any different at all, at the time. It seems like forever ago to you, sweetheart, but it really hasn't been so very long since Ferelden had all that trouble with the Orlesians, after all, and it had been even less time back then."

"Did they think you were Orlesian?" Tirrian asked.

"No," Mum answered. "They knew better than that. But they weren't going out of their way to welcome me, all the same. I was scared, and alone, and a bit at loose ends at the time, but even so, hopping a Rivaini trade ship was looking better and better every moment, when I had the good fortune to meet a young shopkeeper's assistant in the city, a boy not too much older than I was. His employer wouldn't barter with me for supplies, any more than any other respectable person I had asked had done. They thought I had stolen the things that I had—I hadn't, of course, but the truth was . . . complicated."

"What was the truth, Mum?" Tirrian asked, beginning to be intrigued.

Mum looked at her over the lantern, hesitating, then shook her head. "When you're older," she said again. "What's important tonight is that even though his employer threw me out of the shop just like everyone else had, the shopkeeper's assistant felt a little sorry for me. But that day just happened to be his pay day, and I came in just before he was leaving for the alienage for the night. When I left, he collected his pay from his employer, and that shopkeeper's assistant started after me, buying an apple and a mince pie on his way. Not for himself, though his stomach was growling every bit as loud as yours is now, but to give to me, because he suspected that I might be even hungrier than he was.

"He was right, of course. I was about ready to try catching pigeons or fishing with my bare hands, I was so hungry, and very cold besides. Antiva's much warmer than it is in Ferelden, you know, and I was a long way from used to things here. But just as I stood at the edge of the river, wondering how one goes about catching fish barehanded, I ran into a little bit of trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" Tirrian asked. She was up on her knees now, bouncing a little, waiting.

Mum bit off the thread to the patch she had sewn onto Tirrian's spare skirt. She held out the skirt to Tirrian. "Fold this and go put it away, please," she said, picking up one of Dad's socks. Tirrian took her skirt, folded it lengthwise then across, and went over to put it into the clothes chest. "Another boy from the market had followed me, see," Mum told her. "A _shemlen_ boy, who thought it might be fun to show me just how unwelcome I was in Denerim. He wasn't as old as I was—older than you are by a bit, sweetheart, but still a fairly _little_ boy. Maybe nine, or ten. But he was also a fairly rude little boy, and the rocks he threw at me _hurt_."

"He threw rocks?" Tirrian asked, horrified.

"Pebbles, at first," Mum said. "Tiny ones, and they just annoyed me. 'Hey,' he said, 'hey, what are you doing here, elf girl?' Except _he_ was a little bit ruder than that."

Mum drew her lips up, and Tirrian could guess the kind of things that the rude little boy had said to her mother, all those years ago. They weren't _nice_ things to say to anyone, but humans sometimes _weren't_ nice, to elves. A lot of the elves in the alienage were rude right back, calling the humans worse than _shemlen_, like Mum sometimes did, calling them _shems_ in a way that sounded a lot like _trash_ or _beast_.

"He called me names," Mum confirmed. "It made me mad that such a little boy had heard names like that to call me, but not as mad as the pebbles did. When he knew I was paying attention, he started throwing bigger pebbles, then small stones. They stung. 'Stop it, kid,' I told him.

"The little boy laughed at me. 'No,' he said. 'You stop it.'

"'I haven't done anything to you,' I told him. 'Go home to your mum, and mind your own business like a good boy.'

"'You are my own business,' he said. 'Looking at your ugly face is making me sick. Why don't you go back where you came from, and take all the other elves with you?' He threw a rock, and this time I ducked. It was big enough to do more than sting me.

"I was actually angry by this time. 'Look,' I told him, 'if you don't learn some manners, I'll teach them to you. Someone has to.'"

Tirrian stared. When Mum said things like that, it was time to shape up, fast. Mum looked and smiled at her, and her teeth flashed in the firelight.

"And he threw another rock," Mum said. "So I reached out and broke off a reed from the riverbed, and before the boy knew it, I was on top of him. I caught him up under my right arm like a sack of meal from market, and with my left hand, I switched his legs until he cried—more because he was scared than because I'd actually hurt him badly, I think. 'Quiet,' I told that _shemlen_ boy, still holding him tight. He got quiet. 'You're not bleeding, no? You won't get any welts or bruises. You're fine. But throwing rocks at strangers in the market is _not_ fine. You make a pig of yourself when you do, and do a bad job of representing your country on top of that. But never mind that, it's stupid. You never know if a stranger might be quicker than you. You never know if a stranger might be stronger than you. And you never know if a stranger might have something worse than a river switch on her and be even less kindly disposed toward rude little boys in the market. The next person might have a knife. The next person might not care that you're a child who doesn't know any better. So learn better. Understand?' I shook him a little, and the kid nodded.

"'I understand, ma'am,' he said, little voice all shaky. Oh, he was polite after that. So I let him down.

"'Go home,' I told him again, and you should've seen that kid _run_, sweetie. I might've laughed, but truth is, I was so hungry that holding that kid up and teaching him a lesson had taken just about all the strength I had left in me. I fell on my bottom on the street, and that's when that shopkeeper's assistant came up, gaping like one of the fish I'd been hoping to catch.

"He held out an apple to me, and a whole mince pie. I'll tell you, it smelled better than anything in the world. 'You looked hungry,' he said, sounding just about as shaky as the human boy, but in a more surprised way, "so I followed you out here. I'm sorry about Mister Towry. You should try selling your things in the alienage. My friend Alarith won't be able to give you best value for it, but he'll trade. He was a Vint once. He knows what it's like to be new. You just . . . you just _thrashed_ that human.'

"I tried to climb to my feet. I wasn't very graceful about it. 'Some humans are really better off for a good thrashing,' I told him. 'People too, really. Are those for me?' He nodded. I didn't believe him at first. 'Both of them?' He nodded again. 'What do you want?' I asked. Well, I hadn't met many kind people since I had come to Ferelden.

"And the shopkeeper's assistant got annoyed then. 'Look, just take them,' he told me. 'You should get out of here, anyway. That boy might report you to the guard.'

"He looked so serious about it, so worried about me, it made me happy. 'Maybe I will get out of here,' I told him. 'Where are you going?'

"'Home to the alienage,' he told me. 'You could come with me, if you want. Like I said, Alarith's there. He might buy your things, and you could probably stay with one of us for a couple of days if you needed to. We in the alienage try to look out for one another.'

"So I followed that shopkeeper's boy home to the alienage. He kept staring at me like he couldn't believe I was quite real. I couldn't believe he was quite real—the kind of person that would use half his weeks' wages to buy real meat and fruit for a stranger. The kind of person who would later invite that stranger to stay in his house with him and his mum for free, until she found her own job. Kindness like that, sweetie, was far more impressive than anything I did that day. So I married that shopkeeper's assistant."

"Dad! The shopkeeper's assistant was Dad!" Tirrian cried, delighted. "And that's how you came to live in the alienage?"

"He was, and it was," Mum told her, smiling again. She handed Tirrian the three socks she had darned as she talked, along with her sewing basket. "Put these away, please."

"Mmhm," Tirrian agreed, running to do so. When she had put everything away, she ran back to where Mum sat by the hearth and hugged her, tight. She felt warm and happy inside, and she hadn't even eaten yet. "Tell me more another time?" she asked.

"Sure, sweetheart," Mum promised. "But not tonight. I think I hear your father's step in the street. Let's get the bowls out for supper."

* * *

LATER

Later, on her little pallet by the hearth, clutching the rag doll Mum had made her when she was very small, and halfway to sleep, she half-heard Mum talking with Dad over by their big bed.

"I think something happened in the square today, Cyrion."

"What?"

"Oh, I was grumbling a bit—you know how I do, when I'm tired. I shouldn't, especially in front of Tirrian, but sometimes I can't help it. But she _agreed_ with me. Said she hated Chantry Days!"

"Chantry Days are her favorite days of the month."

"I know! Then she was after me to tell her a story, a real story, none of Valendrian's fairy tales, about _elves_."

". . . I see."

"I told her about how we met—"

"When you fearlessly thrashed that human brat, and dazzled me with your ferocity, half-starved and so weak you were falling over—"

"When you used half a week's pay to be kind to an Antivan girl you had no way of knowing wasn't the thief and murderess everyone thought her."

"We elves look after one another."

"You certainly were looking _after_ me."

"I was."

A brief silence. Then, "Cyrion, Maker knows what some families here would do without the sisters coming every month to the alienage, but so help me, I can't like them!"

"I know."

"If those old bats actually gave a damn about the poor it would be one thing, but when they come here, it's not about that."

"Adaia, shhh."

"But Tirrian—"

"Shhh. I know."

"To them, our children are just disadvantaged, half-savage, half-heathen little knif—"

"Shhh."

"They just want to feel good about themselves, and Tirri—"

"I know."

A sob.

"I know."

Tirrian rolled over on her stomach, clutched her doll close, and closed her eyes tight. And as Dad comforted Mum, Tirrian thought she maybe had an idea of why the Chantry sisters didn't know a lot of real stories about elves.

* * *

**A/N: I'm not sure how this one came out. Better than what I had originally planned, but I still feel like this is one of the weaker ficlets I've written for this project. There's a lot more social commentary under the chapter than usual, and the truth is, while I feel it's relevant commentary to the experience of Tirrian Tabris, I'm not sure it's relevant commentary I'm qualified to make. I feel a lot like Sister Cressyd might have felt in another timeline, where she knew another story to tell Tirrian: this isn't my story. This isn't a story I have any right to tell. Someone might need to hear this story. It certainly needs to be told. But it will come out wrong from my lips. **

**On the other hand, I'm actually kind of pleased that stories-within-stories are becoming a bit of schtick for me in this 'verse; it feels authentic to how these characters would live and relate to one another. **

**Leave a review if you've got something to say about all this,**

**LMS**


	11. Katja: Casteless

**Characters:** OMC, F!Brosca (Katja), Rica Brosca, various carta OCs, Kalah Brosca, mention of other OCs

**Pairings:** None

**AU Elements: **None

* * *

**9:19 Dragon**

**The Merchant Quarter and Dust Town, Orzammar**

"You, girl!"

The man's voice was hard and bossy. Rica jumped, and Katja clutched at her sister's arm, but Rica was already standing up on shaky legs to look at the fancy pants who had called out at her. She sort of stuck one leg behind the other and jerked her head. Katja thought the little bob was supposed to be a curtsey. Rica wasn't very good at it. Rica tucked a hank of red hair behind her ear. "Penny for two fatherless daughters, mister?" she asked, holding out Katja's empty, beat-up, old brown hat.

With her other hand, she squeezed Katja, hard enough that her fingernails bit into the back of Katja's hand. She would squeeze even harder if fancy pants looked like chasing them out of the Merchant's Quarter or called for the guard.

The man held up a single coin in front of his face—but the light off of it flashed _gold_. Katja stared at the coin. She had barely ever even _seen_ a gold piece before. That one coin—it could feed them for weeks, even with Mom and all. They could probably get a knife or something for Rica too.

"Fatherless daughters," the man scoffed. "You've got a pretty tongue to match that pretty face, brand. But it's yours, if you like. My boots could use a cleaning."

Katja looked down at fancy pants's boots. They really could, she thought. They were dusty and scuffed, like he'd just been on a trip through the Deep Roads to an outpost, with _stuff_ on them like he'd been through the Deep Roads. She recognized the smell of nug dung, but some of it looked even _worse_.

Rica's nose wrinkled a bit, but then her shoulders kind of straightened and she nodded. "I'll fetch a bucket of water," she said. Her free hand started to crumple her apron up, move toward the knots at her back.

"Oh, I don't think that will be necessary," fancy pants said, sounding amused. "My boots would hardly get clean using Dust Town mud and that rag, would they? No. Like I said. You've got a pretty tongue, brand. Let's see what it can do." He gestured at his boots, and Katja understood what the man wanted.

_The mean old bastard_! Katja went hot all over, but Rica jerked her back, nails digging into Katja's hand again when she would have said something.

Rica stared at the gold coin the merchant was holding up. Katja looked over at her sister, and her stomach growled, loud enough that the mean old fancy pants heard.

"Come on, brand," he urged. "For your _fatherless sister_, not that she looks much like you do. Mother missing a couple different Fathers, hmm? That's usually the way. Lick my boots. Clean them good."

"Rica, don't," Katja whispered, but Rica shook, and stood up straight again.

"All right," she said, letting go of Katja's hand. She glared at Katja to stay put and knelt slowly in front of the man. She bent her face down to the ground.

The man's booted foot flashed out before Katja could stop it and connected with an ugly, solid _smack. _Rica gave a sort of strangled yelp, falling back away from the man, hard, on her ass and shoulder. Katja yelled too.

"Hey!"

She dashed in front of Rica, glaring up at the bastard. Behind her, Rica started to cry, soft, jagged sobs. Keeping her eyes on the merchant, Katja knelt too, reached her arm back to help Rica climb to her feet, using Katja sort of as a ladder. "Let's go, Rica."

The merchant laughed and pocketed his gold coin. "Oh, you're too much, both of you," he said. "Did you think I would actually allow you to filthy my boots with your tongue, chit?" he asked Rica. "Tell the little whelp to stop scowling at me; I could have you both skinned alive and thrown out into the dark, and there's not a soul in this city who would care." He drew his hand out of his pocket again and flipped five other coins in the air toward them before walking off, still chuckling to himself like it was all a big joke. To him, it probably was.

Rica scrabbled in the dirt for the coins the man had flipped at them, all five.

"Ancestors' piss, that's silver," Katja said. "Five whole silvers. That's enough to—"

"Shh!" Rica hissed. She looked around at the busy marketplace and closing her hand over the coins. Tears were still rolling down over her face, which was turning red and swelling from the mean old bastard's kick, but she'd stopped the sobbing. She shoved her fingers in one of her shoes, then into the lining of Katja's old hat, and then into a little pocket beneath her apron. Then she pushed her fist at Katja, and Katja took the two silvers still in it and put one each in both of her shoes. "Come on," Rica told her then. "We should try moving to the other side of the market, by the pub, and closer to home. More crowded there anyway, and the folks there have had a little more to drink. With any luck at all, this bruise might even help our take."

* * *

Rica's bruise didn't help with their take. It was a beautiful bruise, bright and purple over her cheek, as colorful as some of the jewels that the nobles wore. But they only got a few pennies before Rica got so nervous, sitting there with their silvers burning holes in their separate hiding places, that she said they had to leave the market.

But all the hiding places for their silver, and all Rica's carefulness moving their spot and leaving the market early didn't help either. Some duster had seen them with the fancy pants old bastard. Almost the second they crossed over into Dust Town, six of the carta were on top of them.

Rica screamed. "Run, Katja!" But it was too late. Two full-grown men had Katja by an arm each. They held her up off the ground. It felt like her arms were being torn out. A girl a little older than Rica plucked the shoes off Katja's feet, one at a time, letting the two silvers fall into the palm of her hand. She didn't even look at Katja as she did it. Her teeth flashed in a grin.

Rica was fighting like a cat with three others. She was bigger, not too far from grown-up, and they couldn't catch her. Katja saw her bring a hand to her mouth from her belt and swallow. Then one of the bully boys on Rica punched her viciously in the side. Rica went green, gasping.

Katja went crazy. "Stop it! Just stop it!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, kicking out with her legs into empty air. She jerked and tossed, ignoring how her arms pulled at doing it. Then she hit the girl who had been going through her shoes in the chin.

"Shit!"

Katja was swinging from where she hung, back and forth, wide enough that her next kick caught one of the dusters holding her in the ribs. He cursed, but his grip loosened. Enough. Katja jerked free of him on that side, dragging the other man down when he suddenly was holding all of her with just one hand. She came up with her free hand, clawing. She was only six, but she pinched through cloth, dug in, and felt her nails tear. She kicked out at the same time, hard, toward the shin of the guy still holding her. He yelped, and Katja felt a rush of air coming toward her hair—the thick fingers of the guy that had dropped her. She ducked, as the second guy dropped her too, and she lowered her head like a ram and ran at the knot of bully boys around Rica.

"Watch it!"

"Incoming!"

Then a fist slammed into the side of her face, hard and knotty. Fingers reached for Katja's hair, and this time she wasn't ready to duck. They caught, and Katja was thrown back away from the group down into the rutted, muddy road. Howling, she clawed out blindly, felt herself tear into somebody again, hot blood run out under her nails, but then a foot came down on that hand. Katja howled again. Tears filled her eyes.

Then it was over. She heard shoes slapping in the mud as the bully boys ran away, and Katja was left, barefoot, in the middle of the road. She cradled her hand. She tried to look at it, but her eyes were all blurry. Her head hurt where the bastards had pulled her hair. Her face hurt where they'd hit her. Her shoulders hurt where they had held her up. Her ass hurt where they'd thrown her. Everything hurt, but her hand hurt very worst. It felt hot and swollen, flooded. It beat with her heart, and the beating hurt.

Katja curled up into a ball around her hand. She cried. She called for her sister. "Rica, Rica."

Rica's voice came then, teary, like hers was, and gaspy. All painful-sounding, but not too far away. "Here." Katja rolled over and saw Rica, lying just a little way away. Through Katja's blurry eyes, all the colors sort of ran together, but she knew it was her sister. The bruise on Rica's face, pretty and purple as a jewel, and standing out against her skin. That was whiter than usual. The bright red of Rica's hair was everywhere—tangled and messy from the fight. Rica took such good care of her hair. Katja reached toward it with her good hand to try and fix it. Then she realized not all the red was Rica's hair.

She scrambled to her knees, feeling Rica's wet, sticky shoulder, the torn fabric there. Her dress hadn't been ripped this morning. "You're hurt!"

"Don't touch it, Kat," Rica hissed, sitting up. Her face was all scrunched up. "One of those dusters had a knife. I don't think he meant to actually cut me. They got what they wanted."

The blood oozed up from Rica's cut like the mud between Katja's bare toes. Katja's lip trembled. She was going to cry again. Before she did, she grabbed some of her skirt in her hand. The hem was ripping, so she tore it. A whole big strip of it, just like she had seen Rica do with the old clothes she couldn't wear anymore back home when she had been hurt. "Help me," she told Rica. "I don't know how to do it."

"Here," Rica said, helping Katja hold the bandage in place over her shoulder. Her right hand wasn't holding so well. "Thanks. Your poor hand. What happened?"

"One of those idjits stomped it."

"Let me see," Rica ordered her. Katja let her sister take her hand, wincing. More tears ran down her face as Rica pressed at her hand with her fingers, concentrating.

"Just stomped, I think. Still, try not to move it much the next few days, okay?"

"Okay. Will you be all right?"

Rica tried to stand, but breathed in kind of fast, like it hurt. She clutched at Katja's shoulder, like she needed it to keep standing up. "I don't know," she said quietly. "I think something inside got broke, Kat. Hurts a lot worse than the cut."

"Where?" Katja asked, pressing along her sister's sides. Rica yelped, and Katja jumped. "There?"

"Yeah," Rica whispered, crying a little, just like Katja had. "There."

Katja was scared. If something was broke inside Rica, they couldn't fix it. No doctor in the city was going to see two little brands, and Old Lady Granne wouldn't help anyone unless they had something to trade for it. One poor salroka had got on the wrong side of the carta a while back. He had had both his legs broke by one of the bully boys. He hadn't been able to trade Granne anything. His legs had gone rotten inside before he'd starved to death.

"Don't die, Rica," she said, in a very small voice. "Please don't die. Can you walk?"

"I'm not gonna die," Rica retorted. She sounded mad. Katja thought that was probably good. Rica managed a couple of steps. Her face twisted all around with every step, but she was moving.

"Okay. We need to go home. We should go home," Katja said.

"Can't now. Mom'll kill us."

Katja stopped walking, imagining how Mom would be if they walked in with just the handful of pennies still in the lining of her old hat. It was still on the road nearby, all crusty with mud. She picked it up and squeezed the lining, feeling the hard coins inside it still. Good. It might be enough to buy a crust of bread for all of them off the baker's day-old supply. Or three bowls of broth from Canny Sal, maybe. But if Mom was sweaty and sick because that was all they could get today, she wouldn't thank them just cause she wasn't hungry.

She looked back at Rica. "Those dusters. They didn't get _everything_, right? I thought I saw you put something in your mouth."

Rica tried to smile. "Be a while afore we get it back."

Katja nodded. Then she went over to her sister, grabbed Rica's hand in her good one, and the two of them walked over to the side of the smuggler's den, to wait.

* * *

Katja walked slow, so she could be a good crutch and Rica wouldn't have to move so much. In Rica's free hand, she clutched a paper bag with their supper inside. It was really late for supper, but when they walked into their house and Mom saw them, she didn't even look at the bag.

"What kind of crap time do you call this?" she snarled. Her hair was as tangled and messy as Rica's. She hadn't been in a fight. It was always like that. Katja tried not to wrinkle her nose at the smell. Mom always smelled bad. Rica drew an extra couple of buckets every week, and sometimes spent a couple of pennies on oil, so they never smelled like Mom.

Rica tried to smile. "I'm sorry, Mom. We had some trouble today."

Mom looked them over. "Seems like it. Carta always takes its cut, don't it? Whether you offer it or not. Tried to keep some big coin, didn't you, and lost the whole damn thing. Typical."

"Not everything, Mom," Rica said. "We saved some."

She handed a handful of pennies over to their mom. There was a lot more change than that left over from the silver, once they'd got it back and bought some dinner. But Mom didn't have to know that.

Mom grunted. Then she snatched the paper bag from Rica and ripped off a hunk of bread. "'m going out," she said. "Be good, if you even know how." Her hands shook around the hunk of bread in her hand, and she blinked at them both in the lamplight. Grunted again.

"Ancestors' piss, when you get a good take, go find the carta, Rica. Should've figgered that out by now. Offer 'em a taste, make 'em think the whole thing's less than it is. They feel all big and respected, and nobody gets hurt. You're teaching your sister all wrong. You let 'em beat your face in, that's it. You're a nothing from Dust Town forever. You're a brand. That face is all you've got."

Mom spat in the dirt at Rica's feet and shouldered past her out into the street. Rica hissed in again, and Katja tried to be taller. She tried to hold Rica up better. She helped her sister into the house and into a chair at the table.

Rica got the rest of the bread out of the paper bag. Less than half. Katja's stomach grumbled, seeing it there. At least Rica had made her eat her nug jerky before they went home. Rica tore the bread heel in half again with her hands and handed half to Katja. It was hard and cool in her hand. Fresh bread looked soft, in the marketplace. It was so hot it gave off steam, and it smelled amazing. Sometimes Katja wondered what it tasted like.

She turned her piece over in her hand. It was still too big to eat all at once. She started to try and tear it, before the pain in her hand reminded her that wasn't a good idea. A little annoyed, she tore a bite off with her teeth instead. It was even tougher than nug jerky.

Rica ate her own bread in silence, staring across the table at Katja. Katja didn't like it. She squirmed. "What?" she said finally. "Stop looking at me!"

"You're coming up with a nasty black eye, in addition to your poor hand," Rica said. "I'm sorry, Kat. I was stupid. Greedy. I should've done like Mom said. Gone to the carta straight off."

"We don't work for them," Katja muttered. "Don't know why they should get anything. You'd been beat up enough already."

"Maybe so they didn't beat us up again," answered Rica. "We can't leave like your dad did, you know. We en't big enough yet. And there's Mom. So maybe we give the carta its piece next time, and you don't get your face pounded."

Katja made a rude noise. "No one cares about no brand kid's face, or why'd they put the brand on in the first place?"

She looked at the ugly black tattoo over Rica's right cheek, across from her bruise. Rica was so pretty. So nice. But that stupid tattoo was all anyone ever saw, in or out of Dust Town. Katja ran her hands over her own. The shapers came through three times a year and branded every kid in the whole sodding place who lived to be two years old. Even people who left Dust Town were dusters forever. She swallowed hard and tried not to cry. She'd finished her bread and her jerky. But she was still hungry. Her hand hurt and so did her face. And tomorrow they would have to go out again or they would be even hungrier. If Rica could even walk.

"They might care about our faces someday," Rica murmured.

"You mean we could be noble hunters like Mom was?" Katja asked. "What if it doesn't work? It didn't for Mom."

"But it could have," Rica insisted.

"But it didn't," Katja argued. She stood up and walked around the table, helped Rica up again. A beetle scuttled across the dirt floor of the house, and Katja stomped it like that bully boy had stomped her hand, feeling it squash under her bare foot. It helped. But only a little.

Rica made a face. "Don't move like that, please, Kat," she asked.

Katja looked up at her sister, realizing that stomping the bug like that had hurt Rica. "Sorry," she muttered. She helped Rica over to their bed and turned around. She couldn't get out of her dress herself. Not without using the hand that had been stomped. Rica, sitting on the bed, reached up with cool fingers to undo her buttons.

"Ricci, did you see the girl with the carta today?" Katja asked, in a quiet voice. "The one that took my silvers. And my shoes, I think."

"I was kind of busy, Kat."

"She was only a little older'n you, I think." Katja said, letting Rica pull her dress off over her head. Rica folded it, and Katja took it with her good hand and laid it out beside the bed again. It was all ripped, tied around Rica's shoulder, mostly. But Rica probably wouldn't get the stuff to sew another one for Katja until they'd saved up a lot more pennies, tomorrow or in a few weeks. She'd just make do till then.

"Will you be able to get out of yours?" she asked Rica.

Rica tried lifting her arms over her head, moving them toward her own buttons. She made another face, and kind of gasped. "I think I'll be all right, just for tonight," she said.

Katja looked at her sister in the lamp, still flickering for Mom, whenever she tripped on home. "All right," she said, as Rica lay down on their bed. She crawled up onto the bed with Rica, and Rica wrapped her arms around Katja like she always did. She was a little more careful about it, maybe. Rica started to sing, low and sweet like she usually did, but she went quiet before too long. She was too hurt.

So Katja started singing. Her voice was higher than Rica's, and it didn't always sound like she wanted it to, but she knew all the songs Rica sang to her. She sang Rica's favorite, not hers, and Rica laid her hand over Katja's hurt one, soft, not pressing at all. "Sorry, Kat," she whispered again.

Katja just kept singing, keeping real still otherwise so she didn't bump Rica behind her. She felt Rica's arms get heavy and her breathing get deeper as she went to sleep. And Katja thought of that girl in the road and the flash of her grin in the lamps when she'd got those two silvers.

_No one cares about her face, neither. And no one's pounding it, neither. Wonder if she got those two whole silvers . . ._

* * *

**A/N: I'm repeating myself, I know, but again, I just want to wrap both of the Brosca girls up in warm blankets, give them hugs and cups of hot chocolate, and tell them everything's going to be all right. The dwarven commoner origin story is **_**the**_** darkest one in **_**DA:O**_**, and sometimes I think I'd rather crush the social system in Orzammar than the social system in Tevinter or the Great Game of Orlais. (Though can I have the option to crush all three and put everyone in nations run by progressive and compassionate former underDogs and/or city states run by philanthropists kicked upstairs against their will?) **

**Leave a review if you've got something to say,**

**LMS**


	12. Alistair: Nothing

**Characters:** Alistair, OMC Barty, OMC Doran, OMC Kindan, others, Teagan Guerrin, Duncan (voiced but off-page), reference to others

**Pairings: **None

**AU Elements: **None

* * *

**9:20 Dragon**

**Redcliffe Village, the Arling of Redcliffe, Ferelden**

"Hey, give that back!" Alistair cried.

"'Give that back!'" Barty called back in a nasal, whiny voice. He whisked Alistair's list out of the top of the pack, and tossed Alistair's pack over to Doran. "Hah!"

"Guys," Alistair started, looking from the order for the arl's mason to the pack with the treats for the kennel master, the harnesses for Brinna, and the new dwarven-made bellows for the smith. "Come on."

"'Guys, come on,'" Doran mocked, tossing Alistair's pack over to Kindan as Alistair started toward him. "Too slow, bastard!"

"What's this, bastard?" Barty demanded, holding the order for the mason high above his head and squinting at it. "Can't remember your business without some fancy chicken scrawl?"

"He's too dumb, our ickle Ali. Head full of straw and sawdust," Kindan suggested.

A couple of the littlest children watching began to chant. "Straw and sawdust, straw and sawdust! His head is full of straw and sawdust!"

It was so silly and stupid, Alistair didn't want to be embarrassed, but he could feel his face getting hot. "Look, just give me the mason's orders and the castle supplies. I have to get back."

"Why?" Doran asked flatly. "No one wants you. No one up at the castle'll miss you. You can stay and play catch for a little while. Bastard." He held out his arms, and Kindan tossed the pack back to him. Doran held it out, and Alistair, unbelieving, walked over.

Doran shoved the pack hard into Alistair's chest. He staggered back, and Doran tossed the bag back over to Barty and punched Alistair viciously in the stomach.

Alistair fell to his knees, winded, sick. He blinked, heard the little kids laughing and cheering. He shook his head, trying to breathe. "Right," he said, and charged Doran.

Of course, then the other two boys were on him too. But that was how these things went.

* * *

Alistair lay on his back in the dust, staring at the clouds in the bright spring sky. His lip was fat and sticky with blood. His entire body was sore, and Kindan had smeared some horse manure in his hair before leaving with all the others. Some flies were buzzing around it now.

_It could be worse_, he thought. They had left the bag of the things he was supposed to bring back to the castle by him, anyway. He wouldn't have to come to Redcliffe again for another week or so, probably, and no one did anything too bad to him at the castle. Usually.

"Alistair?"

_Great. Now it's worse._ Alistair closed his eyes. He knew that voice. "Let's play a game," he said. "Who's the worst possible person I could possibly be found by with horse manure in my hair? Hello, Bann Teagan. So glad you're back to visit. Sorry I'm not bowing. Can we just tell Arl Eamon I showed the proper respect when you came by? After all, I'm not really sure how I could get lower to the ground just this minute."

"Go on up to the castle, Duncan," Teagan said quietly. "My brother will make you welcome. I'll handle this."

Even better. There was someone with Teagan. Alistair sighed. "As you wish," a faintly accented voice agreed. "I'll speak with you both together later."

"Agreed," said Teagan. There was a jingle of a harness and the sound of hooves on the road as someone rode away. Then another jingle as someone dismounted. "Alistair."

Alistair opened his eyes and took the hand Bann Teagan held out to him. He let Teagan pull him to his feet, biting back a groan as he rose. Then he did bow. He looked at the bann's shiny, perfect boots and scooped up the supply pack off the ground. The order for the mason had been torn into three soggy, grungy pieces and trod into the dirt of the road. Alistair picked them up, trying to decipher what Eamon had written there. Gave it up as a bad job. There went his plan of not coming back to the village for another week.

"Can we just pretend this never happened, milord?" he asked Teagan, shifting the pack on his back. "Can you just go ahead and meet Duncan and my lord and all and wave at me next time you're out by the stables? Please?" Maker, could a person actually die of embarrassment?

Teagan's voice was calm when he spoke. "Weren't two of the little horrors I saw walking off and laughing about this younger brothers to your friend Brinda in the stables?"

Alistair was silent. Barty and Kindan. When he'd first left the servants' quarters for the loft and got to know Brinda, he had thought she was joking about the nastier tendencies of her little brothers and sisters. The thing was, she probably thought she had been. She would probably apologize for her brothers, if she knew. Or maybe she wouldn't. Honestly, he didn't want to know.

Teagan tried again. "What have you got there?"

Alistair hitched the pack up on his back. "Bellows for Master Rory. A few new bridles for Verral. Some treats for Master Olcan, if they weren't crushed."

"Hmm. Nothing that won't wait a few hours to deliver, then? No one who is going to die if we take a short detour to the river and don't get back right away?"

Alistair tried a smile. "No one's going to miss me," he repeated. He dared to look up at Teagan, and found the bann looking down at him intently.

"Well, I would have," Teagan told him. "The ride up to the village works up a bit of an appetite, you know, but I'm not sure I can eat _all_ the food my cook packed me for lunch, even so. I don't suppose you could help me out?"

Alistair's smile turned into something that felt a little less like a fraud. "Maybe." Teagan smiled back at him, walked back to his horse, Prida, mounted, and held out a hand to pull Alistair up in front of him.

Then Alistair saw the little girl walking with her mother down the street, and staring at him. The errand boy with manure in his hair, talking to the brother of the arl. "Bann Teagan," he said, looking back at the girl, "I should probably just walk."

Teagan looked over his shoulder and saw the little girl, who blushed and grinned and whispered something to her mother. He bowed to her and to her mother slightly from the saddle before turning back to Alistair. "If that is what you want," he said easily.

"It is," Alistair said, face all hot again. He hitched his pack up again and started walking, and Teagan urged Prida into a walk beside him.

They didn't talk until they were well up the hill to the castle, out of sight and earshot of the village. The castle gates came into view, but Teagan didn't say anything when Alistair took a left, walking off the road and upstream toward the woods, until he came to a little falls and a dappled pool of brown, cold water by a grass hillock. The bann just walked Prida right along.

He didn't say anything while Alistair washed in the pool, cleaning his face and head and hands, shivering as the freezing water penetrated his tunic and beaded on his skin, and gooseflesh broke out all over. But it was better than having manure all over him.

Alistair turned around then to see that Teagan had let Prida loose to graze and had removed her saddlebags. He was laying out a picnic blanket, two wooden plates, and enough cold chicken, bread, and cheese Alistair's stomach rumbled. "You were supposed to share that with your friend, weren't you?" he asked.

"Dera no doubt has something much better than picnic rations for Eamon's guest," Teagan said. "But I confess I _was_ hoping to share with a friend today. Would you sit down?"

Alistair sat. His eyes stung, and he blinked them, closed them hard. His throat felt like an apple had caught in it, and he drew his knees up and put his head down on them.

"Alistair . . ."

"This isn't a good day," Alistair said to the ground between his knees. "I'm sorry. If you'll just—give me a moment. Please. Forgive me."

"There is nothing to forgive," Teagan said.

Finally, Alistair was able to look up and eat a little lunch. "Thank you, milord," he said quietly.

"How long has this been going on?" Teagan asked him.

Alistair was bitter. "All of it, or just the knocking-me-around bit?" Teagan broke a chicken wing to get at more of the meat and just looked at him. "Ever since somebody decided I was old enough to run errands to the village," he said. "No one ever touches me around the castle. They talk, make the odd, charming little _comment_, but that's it. In the village, everything is fair game." He shrugged. "It's not always this bad. I can handle it. Mostly."

"Have you told Eamon?"

Alistair looked at Teagan. "He saw bruises once when he came for lunch. He told me to take care of myself when he left and sent out for a pot of ointment from the Circle. He didn't say anything else, and he didn't do anything else. He'd fulfilled his obligation." Alistair's hand stole beneath his tunic, to where he wore a Chantry amulet Eamon had given him a couple of years ago, saying it had belonged to his mother.

_If Mother was alive, it would all be better. _

_But she's not. _

"I'm sorry, milord," Alistair said to Teagan after a moment. "I know he's your brother, and you love him. And I'm a lot more grateful than I probably sound. The arl is—he's a wonderful man. He's done everything for me, when I'm just—nothing. Nothing. A . . . a servant girl's _bastard_." The ugly word left a bad taste in his mouth. "An orphan."

Sometimes he wasn't sure about that last one, any more than anyone else was, and that was probably almost half his problem with the others. If Eamon's household and the villagers really believed that his mother had been forced or seduced by that shiftless lordling they'd told him about, or had been a bit stupid with one of Eamon's rangers, somehow Alistair thought they might have been a little more sympathetic or forgiving. But at any rate, no one was stepping up to claim him.

Bann Teagan looked strange. Alistair stared moodily across the picnic blanket at him.

Sometimes, when he'd been younger, Alistair had snuck into the guest rooms of the castle and looked at his reflection in the mirrors there. They were too expensive for the servants' quarters where he had lived. He'd made stupid faces, posed like a guard or a hero in the storybooks he'd read from Eamon's library. But sometimes he'd just looked, trying to find some resemblance to the arl or the bann in the face he saw in the mirror. Sometimes he'd thought he had a nose like Eamon's, or hair a bit like Teagan's. Hoped, maybe.

Except he didn't, really. Probably the truth was exactly what they'd told him: that his father had been a shiftless lordling, a handsome and charming but really quite useless visitor to Redcliffe who had taken sick and died before the bastard child he'd sired on one of Eamon's servant girls had been born, killing his mother in the process. Maybe Alistair resembled the nobleman. Handsome and charming but really quite useless—he'd heard that often enough, or variations on that basic idea. Maybe he resembled his mother, or the half-sister they said had gone to live with her own father's relatives in Denerim. But Alistair had never met his sister, and the only thing he had of either of his parents was his Chantry amulet. But he didn't look like Eamon.

Bann Teagan did. Oh, not usually. Arl Eamon was . . . the arl. He had wrinkles around his eyes and across his forehead, and silver in his dark hair, and a bushy beard that covered almost half his face. He was always busy, always serious, and sometimes, it seemed like the only times Alistair saw him were the times that he, Alistair, was in trouble. Eamon seemed a lot more than six years older than Teagan, whose hair was a much lighter, more reddish brown. Teagan kept his beard trimmed, just a little goatee around his mouth, and though Alistair probably saw Teagan much less frequently than the arl—Teagan had his own estate and his own people to look after—whenever Teagan came around, he always seemed to have time for Alistair. He _played_ in a way Eamon never, ever did.

But the Guerrin brothers had the same face, and sometimes, Alistair could see it. Teagan's lips went all thin and hard just like the arl's did when he was thinking about something difficult and a little unpleasant. "Well, exactly," the bann said finally. "You're an orphan. A bastard."

Alistair blinked hard and looked down at his knees again, throwing his chicken down on his plate. But Teagan reached out and gripped his shoulder. "If you think about it, it doesn't make much sense for the Redcliffe children to mock or hurt a nothing, does it?" he asked. Alistair looked up at him. "In fact, I would say it was a rather foolish exercise."

"They don't care—" Alistair started.

"So make them," Teagan suggested. "Alistair, whatever else you may be, you are not foolish. That means that however powerless you may feel in other respects, you have the power to make those who would torment you see that there is nothing to be gained in doing so. Men—and children—bully others because it makes them feel big and important. They believe that putting down others somehow proves their own strength in comparison. But what does tormenting a bastard orphan prove about anyone?" He raised his eyebrows, meeting Alistair's eyes.

Alistair snorted. "What crushing an insect might prove, I suppose," he said. Teagan extended his hand to Alistair, as if to say, _there you are_. Alistair looked harder at Teagan, getting it. If he could make giving him a hard time look stupid, sort of small, anyone who was doing it to feel big, like Teagan said, wouldn't want to do it anymore. "Do you think it could work?" he asked.

"Not always," Teagan admitted, wiping his greasy chicken fingers on the grass. "As sad as it is, there are cruel people in the world, people who crush insects just to crush them, and not to prove anything. There are also people who, once made to feel how foolish they are being, become angry as they become ashamed. But I think you will learn which is which. And I think it could help. And . . . when it doesn't—"

He leaped up then and held out his hand, and Alistair took it and let Teagan pull him to his feet.

"There are several things you can do when one person—or several—wants to pull you into a fight. Here—I'll show you."

Alistair looked down at the picnic blanket and scooped a last slice of cheese off his plate. He stuffed it in his mouth, then followed Teagan away from the blanket to a stretch of open ground beside the brook. Teagan walked around him, moving his shoulders and legs into position, and Alistair listened, and watched, and started to learn.

* * *

**A/N: I really did consider writing Duncan more deeply into Alistair's backstory. In **_**The Calling**_** he does say he'll check on Alistair for Maric as he grows, and I wanted to acknowledge that. In addition, a Duncan who was a periodic visitor during Alistair's formative years would add weight to the relationship the two of them have in **_**DA:O**_**. The problem was that, as my friend pointed out, **_**DA:O**_** Alistair would have probably mentioned Duncan being a presence in his life if he actually had been, and Duncan being a rather recent acquaintance in **_**DA:O**_** also helps characterize Alistair as someone who has experienced very few positive role models or strong friendships up to that point. So I'm erring on the side of nodding to **_**The Calling**_** without actually giving the two characters any kind of meaningful relationship at this stage in Alistair's life. **

**So you want to imagine a Duncan who occasionally meets with Eamon in the course of his Grey Warden duties, without very obviously checking up on Alistair and tipping him off that there's something special about him. Is Duncan getting onto Eamon later when he meets with the arl and with Teagan? On the whole, I think probably not. Grey Wardens understand less than palatable methods for obtaining a desired result—in this case, an Alistair who isn't discovered to be the bastard son of King Maric Theirin. Eamon's strategy of pushing Alistair into the background and more or less refusing to defend him against the animosity of others is paying dividends in making him less likely to be noticed, after all (in addition to probably putting paid to some of the rumors that Eamon sired Alistair himself). The village nothing is unlikely to be viewed as any sort of potential political pawn, and perhaps when the other children mature somewhat and after he works past his childhood trauma, Alistair can make some sort of life for himself. Some safe, ordinary, nothing life, just like his father wanted. **

**You can probably tell I'm a fan of the idea that Teagan Guerrin was really Alistair's best ally growing up. He always seems very fond of Alistair in the games, an Alistair at his very lowest and feeling abandoned by the world will find that Teagan is still there for him, and an Alistair at his very snippiest is snippy because of a wrong done to Teagan. While I'm not talking up Teagan's confirmation of Alistair's feelings of inferiority in this chapter, I do affirm the advice he gives to Alistair comes from a good place—and from an understanding of who Alistair is as a person and what his strengths are. Eamon I can't forgive, for all I **_**can**_** understand him. Teagan gets a little more grace. **

**Leave a review if you've got something to say,**

**LMS**


	13. Estral: Little Lark

**Characters: **F!Mage!Lavellan (Estral), OMC Rian Lavellan, Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan, reference to OMC Eylan Lavellan

**Pairings: **Background OMC Eylan/OFC Siar Lavellan

**AU Elements: **None

* * *

**9:20 Dragon**

**Clan Lavellan, Somewhere in the Free Marches**

"Look, look, Rian!" Estral called, running up to Deshanna's First, grinning.

Rian was probably her favorite person in the whole world, after Mam and Dad, and Keeper Deshanna of course. He was a wonderful mage and a better teacher, and he taught Estral more than he taught anyone else in the whole clan. Really, he was more like a brother than a teacher, even. Sometimes Estral liked to pretend that he was her brother, though of course he was much too old, and he had said that that was just fine with him, that he loved her just as much as he loved his real sister. He gave her rides on his back, and a leg up to the wild apple trees, and sometimes made lights at night to dance above her bedroll and help her get to sleep.

He turned around from where he had been reading something on one of his scrolls and caught her up in his arms, tossed her high in the air. "Estral, _vhenan_, and a happy birthday to you! Climbed a mountain and crossed a river this morning, have you?"

Estral laughed. "Don't be silly!"

"No?"

"No. I went to see the fawns when I got up—they're gorgeous, Rian. _So cute_! And so _tiny_—will they really get big enough to help pull the aravels one day?"

"They get bigger like you get bigger, vhenan," Rian said, wincing and lowering her to the ground. "Only two winters past I could carry you to Antiva and back in a basket, it seems, and now you're all but too heavy for me. Soon you'll be a great big girl, and soon the fawns born this spring will be quite big enough to help pull the aravels. And having babies of their own too."

Estral couldn't help bouncing up at the very idea. "More babies!" Then an even better thought occurred to her. "Rian, wouldn't it be grand if _all_ the halla were babies?"

Rian seemed to think this was funny. "And how would they pull the aravels then? Would you help them?"

"I bet I _could_," Estral said, thinking hard. "You too, and Keeper Deshanna. I bet we could do it."

"_And_ set the camp wards, _and_ defend us from bandits and wolves and bears, _and_ do the studying each day?" Rian asked her.

Estral thought about this for a moment. "Maybe not," she admitted. "But the fawns are _so_ cute. Anyway, then I went to Mam and Dad's fire for breakfast, and Mam made special flatcakes, with strawberries and blueberries and blackberries in, and special cheese Mam traded for near Starkhaven, and—" she bounced again then, remembering what she had wanted to show Rian in the first place. "And Dad gave me this!"

She produced her special birthday present, a beautiful little flute, carved with flowers and little birds on, and showed it to Rian.

Rian went quiet. "Did he now?" he asked, taking the flute.

"Isn't it _gorgeous_?" Estral asked. "It's like Teral's or Lorrin's, but just my size, and I can already play on it a little, see?" She snatched it back from Rian, and concentrating, brought the mouth hole to her lips and blew. A high, sweet, breathy sound came out, and Estral loved it so much she had to stop and laugh again right there. "That's all I can do so far," she admitted to Rian, "but Dad says he'll show me more. I'll be able to play so many songs, Rian, or—"

Rian interrupted her, in a tone rather different from his usual one. "Estral, I don't think it's a good idea for you to play this."

Estral frowned. "What?"

Rian ran his fingers through his hair. "You know I love your music, but it's never just me and the rest of the clan listening, now is it? The spirits that seek you out in the Fade—"

"They aren't demons," Estral said quickly. "Keeper says! None of them have ever asked me for anything!"

Maybe she had been a little loud, because Keeper came over then. "What's all this?" she asked.

"Dad got me a flute for my birthday, and Rian thinks I should never play it at all, or give it back, even!" Estral said, scowling.

"Keeper, the spirits—"

But Keeper was shaking her head. She was on Estral's side! "Are not demons, just as the da'len says, Rian. They are spirits—sometimes wonder or curiosity or peace, but mostly of joy. If Estral goes to her dreams fearing them, that may change. I had thought I taught that to you."

"But Keeper, they _stalk_ her—"

"They _greet_ her, just as you greet your friends in the clan in the waking hours," Keeper said, stern. "You yourself made an amulet to keep her dreams quiet, and you were privy to all our lessons to her on how to tell friend from foe in the Fade. Do you not trust your own skill? Do you not trust mine?"

Rian hesitated. His lips pressed together. Estral knew that Rian loved her, but sometimes she wondered if he loved the Keeper as much. "I trust you, Keeper," he said finally. He turned back to Estral. "Be careful, vhenan," he told her. "Cautious and cunning, always. You remember what the Keeper and I taught you?"

"Stay calm," Estral recited. "Most demons will not attack unless they are very, very frustrated—or mad—and you can tell when they are. Instead, they'll try to trick or bribe you into giving them power over you. They're much weaker on their own, especially in the Fade, where the reality of our minds is just as real as theirs is. Listen to what the spirits say—the kinds of questions they ask and the things they are interested in will reveal what they are and what they want. If it's power, or knowledge of our world that they don't already have, or something alien to what they already are, they are per—perverse. But you have the strength to banish them. Or to kill, if you must."

She beamed, proud at remembering it all, and Rian relaxed, just a little. Keeper Deshanna reached out and ruffled her hair. "Good," she said. "Now, what's this flute you say your da gave you?"

Estral showed her. Keeper Deshanna was very admiring. "Very nice," she complimented Estral. "Fine craftsmanship. Did your da make it or trade for it?"

"He traded, I think," Estral said. "Said he saw it and thought of me."

"And no wonder," Deshanna replied. "See all the little birds carved onto the shaft?"

Estral nodded.

"Do you know what those are?"

Estral thought about it. "They look like those little brown songbirds, the ones that live on the ground instead of in the trees. But I don't know what they're called."

"Larks," Rian said, smiling a bit. "Small and brown all over so the hawks might miss them in those nests on the ground, and the hunter and the scout too, if they didn't sing so beautifully. More beautifully than any other bird in the forest, some say. Your dad chose your present well." Estral looked at him, uncertain if he was really all right about the flute. He smiled at her. "Go on then. Didn't you tell me he was going to show you how to play it?"

"Mmhm," Estral confirmed. She flew at Rian, flung her arms around his neck, and kissed him twice on the cheek. He hugged her back and mussed up her hair, then let her go. Estral hugged the Keeper as well, then darted away from Keeper Deshanna's fire to go back to her own mam and dad's for the rest of her birthday present.

* * *

**A/N: Estral's a little strange. She ended up a decent foil to another major character from the series (not one I'm writing about, but affiliated with another songbird, and believe it or not, I didn't plan to affiliate Estral with a lark as contrast. It just sort of happened.) Estral also gives off fairly haunting echoes of a major historical figure in the 'verse. But while I'm by no means displeased by these ways the character could be interpreted, those particular inflections to her character (if you caught them at all) were unintentional. My intentions in creating the character were simply to create a mage who **_**is not a mage**_**. For most mage characters in the universe, their magic is their single most defining trait, what they want to do with their lives, and basically the axis their entire lives orbit around. I don't think that's very fair, though. It's reductionist in nature. You can take any distinguishing trait and stretch it so it encompasses a person's whole world and identity, but I think people should be allowed to be more than what society at large finds most remarkable about them (be it sexuality, abled-status, political views, intelligence, vocation . . . or magical ability). So Estral is not a mage. She's an artist and a musician who happens to have magical talent. **

**But otherwise, right now, she's a good break from all the heartbreak going on with some other characters. Take a deep breath, guys. You'll need it for the next one. **

**As always, I love to hear from you,**

**LMS**


	14. Leto: An Honor

**Trigger Warning: This chapter, even more than Katja and Rica's experience in Dust Town, is the reason this part of the story is rated M. This chapter contains scenes of graphic violence and torturous experimentation. There is no explicit sexual content, but there is a bit more than an allusion to a consensual encounter that occurs off-page as well as an on-page depiction of nonconsensual molestation of a character who would be considered a minor in my country if not in-universe. I will try to be as gracious about it as possible, but this experience is canonically both an explicit (experimentation) and an implicit (sexual abuse) part of this character's history, and a transformational one for him. **_**Please**_** skip if you need to at any point, and at all times remember I wrote this in a spirit of compassion and advocacy for those who experience abuse like this in our world today, not in a spirit of sensationalism or exploitation. Enslaved individuals are callously and painfully used for evil purposes in our world today. Young men, as well as women, are abused by guardians who should protect them. It happens. And we should talk about it instead of pretending it doesn't.**

* * *

**9:20 Dragon**

**Minrathous, The Tevinter Imperium**

**i. **

Leto was roused by a deafening pounding on the door of Amila's fabric stockroom. "Leto! Leto! Amila will have your hide to add to the stores if you're in there!"

"Uunnh," a sleepy soprano groaned. Skin slid on skin, and soft lips pressed against Leto's jaw. "Make him go away."

The sound of the knocking on the door went straight through Leto's head. "Go away," he moaned obediently.

"The sun's been up over the city a full hour by the dial, knife ear! Get your whore out of here and come train, or has lust made you lazy as well as a drunkard?"

Leto was awake now. He sat up. "Say that to my face on the sands, Linden. I dare you."

A laugh. "You think I won't? A trickster's skill on the sands doesn't change what's true. Get up. Amila needs that store room today, and Emerus needs you, Andraste spare us. There's a new fighter he's training. And I'm certain there are legions of men, women, and other lucky bastard knife ears that need your whore."

"I'm a dancer, not a whore, you ass!" Analia yelled, irritated.

Another laugh. "There's a difference?"

Leto stood, disentangling himself from Analia. She was sitting up in their nest of silk, pulled from the bolts in the stockroom, and somewhat the worse for wear. He would launder them for Amila later. She truly might have him lashed for his time with Analia in her stockroom, but she was unlikely to press for too harsh a punishment—and Emerus was unlikely to deal one.

Leto dropped a quick kiss on Analia's head and pulled on his trousers, before opening the door to go out to Linden. He closed it on Analia again behind him.

The older fighter looked him up and down. His lip curled back in a sneer. "There he is."

"Leave," Leto said quietly, refusing to squint against the brighter light of Amila's office. "You've found me. You've delivered your message. I'll be out in the arena shortly. We are done here."

Linden's eyes glittered dangerously. "Or what?" he whispered.

Leto looked back at him. "We are done here," he repeated, levelly.

Linden hated him, Leto knew. The human would kill him, if he could, and once upon a time, he might have been able to. When Leto had first arrived at Emerus's school, he had not been capable of defeating Linden in open combat. He had been very young, and inexperienced with it. Linden had been bigger than he was. Human, he had already had more than five years in the games, had been offered retirement and refused it to continue championing Emerus in the arenas of Minrathous.

Linden had been Emerus's best, then, but even then, he had been as incapable of defeating Leto as Leto had been of defeating him, and it had been years since. Leto had grown in the interim. He was still an elf, slighter and leaner than a human male as were most his kind, but tall for an elf, tall enough to look a human man in the eye. Tall enough to look Linden—another fighter who relied on speed and agility in battle rather than on brute strength—in the eye, and strong. Two years on Emerus's strict diet and training regimen had turned Leto into a weapon, honed and tempered.

Those same years had weathered and broken Linden. He had suffered a bad tendon injury in a fight the year before that had weakened him greatly. Since, he had fallen out of favor with the nobility that had used to finance him. Expensive habits had led him to contract himself back into service with Emerus, more as a secondary instructor and a servant than as a fighter of any real relevance. Two years ago, if Linden had chosen, he could have arranged to have Leto killed off the sands if he could not defeat him on them. These days, Leto doubted that Linden had the influence.

Linden must have gotten some idea of what Leto was thinking, because his eyes narrowed. "You think you're so big, don't you?" he said, lowly, viciously. "Seventeen, the society of Minrathous all in love with you, a beautiful girl stupid enough to sleep with you—oversleep—and valuable enough everyone here will just let you off the hook. I bet life seems pretty perfect to you, Dread Wolf of Seheron. Well, you listen to me.

"You may be a god today, little Leto, but never forget that, in Minrathous, we _kill_ gods. Could be tomorrow. Could be next week. Could be next season or next year. But someday, somebody will take you down. I hope I'm there to see it. And in the meantime, while you're playing the god, remember the bed you bring all your whores back to is a borrowed one—or a stolen _closet_. You don't own your bed, little Leto. You don't own anything. Not really, and if you think Emerus will let you start trying, as high as you're flying right now—well. You've got another thing coming, don't you?"

He shoved Leto once in the chest, spat off to the side, and then lurched away, limping. Leto rolled his eyes, turned around, and went back into the stockroom.

Analia was there, young and beautiful, clad now in her golden dancer's dress, all soft curves and perfumed skin, with dark eyes and a curtain of black hair all the way to her waist. "Well, he wasn't very hospitable, was he?" she remarked, making a face in the dark.

"He never has been," Leto answered, beginning to hunt through the dim stockroom for his tunic, to fold some of the fallen bolts of cloth and note which were wrinkled, which stained.

Linden had a poisonous sort of point, he thought. He hadn't made it to be helpful. Everything Linden had said was entirely out of spite, and intended to ruin whatever happiness or contentment that Leto felt he had earned here. He knew that. But . . . "Damn him," he muttered. "I'm sorry you heard all that."

"He's just jealous," Analia said frankly, pragmatically. "He's a nasty old washed-up brawler, and I'm not letting him ruin my night with the 'Dread Wolf of Seheron!'" She giggled. "You were lovely, really. So earnest and intense! You'll be fantastic someday, sooner if you let me take some more time to train you up. I'd be _more_ than willing." She reached out for his arm and wrapped her hands around it, stroking up and down with her fingers and pulling him back toward her.

"Analia—"

"Will you be in awful trouble?" He could hear the pout in her voice, and it just worsened the restless, vaguely disgusted feeling he had in his chest and gut now.

"No. There have been other students here caught bringing lovers in. It's usually no more than a reprimand. But I have to go."

Declan had been one of the worst for bringing in girls Leto had ever seen. Declan, the young giant from Ferelden, who had met him the same day Linden had, and who he had bested on the training sands in an even shorter time, but who had never once resented him for it. Declan, who had not been the most skillful fighter in the school, but who had always been very popular with the nobles who arranged the combat games. Declan, who had hoped to retire with enough coin to buy a house for his mother back in Denerim, but whom Emerus had always put off for "one more season."

Declan had died from a mauling he suffered in the games four months previously.

"Do you have to?" Analia was staying. "If you won't be in terrible trouble, stay and finish the wine with me. I can tell you about the horrible scandal Magister Palia's daughter got in with Rogeri, the dance master's cousin. Or—" She cast about for another suitable topic—or unsuitable, rather. Perhaps.

Leto put the unscathed bolts of cloth back onto their proper shelves, made a stack of the ones he would need to treat. He knelt, slid on his sandals, and began to tie them. Analia's voice, which had sounded so alluring in the fog of last night, now sounded shrill and whiny and stupid to him. Her perfume was starting to cloy. He didn't want her here anymore. He was beginning to find it surprising he ever had.

"Oh, I know," she said, brightly. "You'll be interested in this: Did you hear about the tournament that magister is holding for all the warriors in Minrathous?"

Leto was interested in this, and he finished lacing his sandals and stood, but did not ask Analia to leave just yet, though he did open the door and walk with her out of the stockroom. "What tournament? I haven't heard of a fight being arranged."

"Not one of the games, silly. This is different. Bigger," Analia said, dark eyes sparkling now that she had caught his attention. "This magister—Darius or Narius or Danarius or something—he's holding an open tournament for all the warriors in Minrathous. Slaves, freemen, fighters in the combat games, soldiers, whatever." She shrugged elegantly. "He's rented one of the arenas in the city center for the duration, or maybe even bought it. Probably he bought it, I don't remember, but he's offering a position as his personal guard and what he's calling a gift 'beyond description' to the winner, along with a boon of their choice. Personal guard to a magister! Can you imagine the honor?"

"And anyone can enter?" Leto asked, thinking of Emerus, and a magister's advocacy in getting him free of the combat games.

Analia rolled her eyes. "Well. Not really anyone. That was just a figure of speech. You have to apply to the magister's steward in the city. He looks you over, and if you're good enough, you're in! Ooh—Leto, you should apply! I'm sure just everyone would show up to see the Dread Wolf of Seheron fight. It's going to be an even bigger event than any of the combat games."

Leto hummed. "Perhaps I shall, at that."

* * *

**ii. **

Leto could hear the roar of the spectators out in the arena from here. Every fight in Danarius's tournament drew a bigger audience—not just the nobles that came to the usual combat games, but slaves and commoners off the street, excited for their taste of the action and the drama, the novelty of this unusually democratic contest, the idea that any warrior in the city might be elected to the honor of a place at a magister's right hand.

Like Analia had told Leto weeks before, it wasn't any warrior in the city, of course. Before he had been allowed to compete, Leto had had to give Magister Danarius's steward his age, a full martial history, and submit to a complete examination by a mage healer. But it was true that there were more kinds of warriors here than he had ever seen before: former criminals and pirates, fighters from the combat games, slaves and soldiers and mercenaries from a dozen different backgrounds and at least five different native tongues. Men and women, elves and humans—no dwarves, for some reason—but Leto had heard there had been a Tal-Vashoth qunari, though the qunari had been knocked out of the tournament by another contestant a couple of rounds back. Once the steward had declared the tournament begun, it was clear that those that remained were all between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five, and in exceptional physical health, but they had little else in common, not even fighting styles, and one might have thought the magister would be seeking a particular kind of bodyguard.

Leto had done well in his first two battles of the tournament—against a mercenary swordswoman from Solas and a slums rogue—and though he had expected some resistance from Emerus over his participation in the tournament, his master had been surprisingly encouraging. Or perhaps not so surprisingly—Emerus had scheduled seven fights for other nobles since the tournament had begun, and received bribes from three to train their own fighters at the school. Leto himself had received a number of gifts from admirers—two entire sets of armor; three fine knives; a pile of letters he could not read, some of them scented; and a number of bottles of oil, perfume, and wine. He had made substantial deposits to the account Amila managed on his behalf, and there was a distinct possibility that before the tournament ended, he would be able to afford his own parcel of land outside the city against his eventual retirement.

If he survived. That was the catch; the magister, Danarius, appeared to care less about the Chantry's outlook on blood sport than was usual for nobles to admit so openly. Of the twelve contests that had taken place over the first three weeks of Danarius's competition so far—some of them duels, some of them melees—eighteen of the original two score and some-odd participants had either been killed outright or died of injuries sustained in combat. The magister had made no objection. Neither had any of the crowd. Of course, they never did, whatever the Chantry brothers said.

Today was another melee, and Leto was . . . apprehensive. The past two years, he had fought in far more duels than he had melees. When the nobles came to see him, they came to see a champion—or a demon. In either case, the narrative was a singular one—one of man against man rather than man against beast or man against many. He had fought multiple opponents back at the gymnasium, but it had been some time.

There was a clatter in the hallway, footsteps. Leto picked up a knife, wary of attackers. Occasionally over the years, opponents or their patrons had tried to see to it that he didn't make a good showing, outside of the arena. And at the moment, distraction would be almost as bad as an attack. "There must be half an hour until the melee," he called. "No visitors before the match."

"Is that a hard and fast rule, Leto?" a voice called back. Leto froze. He knew that voice like he knew his name. He hadn't heard it in five years.

"Verry?" he said. His voice came out strangled, and on the other side of the door to his dressing room, a woman laughed.

Leto stumbled in his haste to open the door. Two elf women stood there in the archway.

The younger of the two was in her early twenties, perhaps. She wasn't pretty—too thin, somewhat pale, and with a rather long, bony face—but she looked sensible and dependable. Her red hair was tied back into a no-nonsense knot at the nape of her neck, a small knife hung at her belt, and her sleeves were longer than they needed to be in the heat of the summer. She was leaning casually on a simple, unadorned staff of yew.

The elder woman was approaching forty. You could tell she was the mother of the first only by the way her darker hair, oak brown but beginning to be shot through with threads of silver, was tied back in exactly the same knot as the other's, and by something about the expression. On the whole, however, her face was the female version of Leto's own.

Leto's throat caught. His eyes burned.

"Leto," Sulin breathed, drinking him in. "Oh, Leto . . ."

"Mother."

Then he was in her arms, and Varania's, and both women were crying, and so was he, and he didn't care who came by or who saw them. Mother kissed his cheeks, his forehead, his hair. Varania complained about how much he had grown, how unfair it was to have to look up to her younger brother.

Then they were all inside Leto's dressing room, sitting on the floor in a circle. Leto couldn't stop staring at them. He could hardly believe it. "How?" he asked finally.

"Miss Xenia is seventeen now, after all, and something of a beauty." Mother said. "The mistress has ambitions for her. I believe the two of them might have run off without the master if he didn't agree to vacation in Minrathous. They hope to snare some minor nobleman."

"And, of course, when presenting Miss Xenia to society, it is helpful for the master to show he is important enough to have slaves with magical ability—even if 'slaves' is only me, and the magical ability as modest as mine is," Varania added. "He made Mother Miss Xenia's maid for the trip here, and, in company, I wait on him."

Leto shook his head. He had forgotten, after all this time, how grasping, greedy, and self-important his old master actually was. When he had looked back, he had remembered only that Bellisti had once protected him when Verry had asked it, and had treated his slaves fairly, in contrast to his cruel wife and daughter. Now he saw that Bellisti had to have chosen his wife, that his protecting Leto had been an exception in a household where the house and field slaves had, as a rule, received little to no protection from the vicious whims and general ill temper of the mistress, her daughter, and her mother; from brutal overseers; or from lecherous visitors to the house.

Not that Domitian, preparing children for the slaughter fields of the endless war against the Qunari, or Emerus, profiting off the blood of warriors and martial artists who were totally dependent upon him, were much better.

Leto said none of this. They were slaves, after all, the three of them. What other options did they have? They accepted what was dealt to them, didn't they?

Varania was still explaining how she and Mother had come to find him. "Master and I heard about the magister's tournament and the great combat games veteran doing so well in it the same day Miss Xenia did. But it was Mother who thought to ask what Leto, the Dread Wolf of Seheron, actually looked like."

Mother was still clasping Leto's hand over the space between them, stroking the back side of it with her warm, dry, work-calloused thumb. "Perhaps it was silly of me to ask; there must be hundreds and thousands of Letos in the Imperium, they said he was from Seheron, and the last we had heard, you were at the gymnasium in Carastes, preparing to muster out to war. But they said he was young too, and I suppose every mother listens to hear news of her child—good or bad, real or imaginary. But this time it was real."

"The master and Miss Xenia thought it was a wonderful joke when we all realized," Varania said. "'Your Leto, one of the top fighters in the Minrathous combat games!' they said. 'Aren't you glad I sent him to the gymnasium?' Master asked. He said you might never have been discovered otherwise. Miss Xenia's placed quite a bet on you. And Master gave both of us leave this morning to come and see you, if we could."

"It's good to see you," Leto said, kissing Mother's hand and reaching out with his other hand to clasp Varania's arm. He noted her wince when he did so, and looked away, saddened but unsurprised.

"And you," Mother said, squeezing his hand. "You're so beautiful. So strong and—" she swallowed. "We had thought we had lost you."

"I'm not so easily lost," Leto told her.

"So it seems," Varania said, wryly. "You're going to have to tell us how you got out of the war, Leto."

"I got lucky," Leto answered simply. "I suppose the master of the gymnasium liked the way I handled swords, arrows, and axes."

The reference to their last conversation made Varania smile. "I never imagined you as a warrior, brother. Truth told, I'm glad it's here, instead of against the Qunari."

"Miss Xenia told us a little about the combat games," Mother said. "She said it can be a good life, for skilled warriors—if a little . . . rigorous in training. They feed you enough, don't they? And let you go to the Chantry on rest days? Do you have a special someone?"

"More than one, more like," Varania put in. "You certainly aren't short on hopefuls. I think I saw at least three women waving various undergarments out there, trying to get in to see you. One or two men right next to them. It took a while for Mother to convince them we're related."

"I—there's no one in . . . in particular," Leto stammered, feeling himself go hot and suddenly feeling altogether too much like a boy.

Varania's eyes sparkled. "A different lover every night then."

"Not—"

She laughed at his face. "Not _every_ night?"

Leto cleared his throat. "Discipline _is_ rather tight, Varania," he said, trying to regain something of his dignity. Mother smiled.

"Oh, I'm sure," Varania teased. "'Dread Wolf of Seheron.' Goes into battle in a wolf's head! Have you ever even been to Seheron, Leto?"

For a moment, Leto half hoped he would be killed in the melee. He bent over, burying his burning face in the folds of Mother's skirt as if he still were a boy, and she smoothed his hair. "It's a character," he said to Mother's lap. "The nobles like it, so my master likes it."

"It's fine, Leto," Mother said, soothingly. "We hear you're very popular."

Leto let Mother stroke his hair for a few moments more, and then sat up. Varania was still grinning with perverse amusement, but in a way, it was just as good as Mother's fingers in his hair, and he smiled at her. She reached out and tweaked his ear, fondly.

"Leto," Mother asked then, quietly, "have you—how many people have you killed, since coming to Minrathous?"

Leto swallowed. _Three for certain. Maybe as many as six. I could kill just as many today._ Outside of the magister's unusual tournament, deaths in more ordinary combat games were rare, but they did happen. They were more often a consequence of injuries than strictly intentional. Unlike some, Leto took no pleasure in killing, but he always felt it was better to kill than be killed. "Do you really want to know?"

Mother looked sideways, at Varania. Leto's sister had gone very still, her eyes down. Almost involuntarily, it seemed, her hands had wrapped around her sleeved forearms, protecting them. Hiding them. There were things Verry did for her masters that their mother did not want to know about either. The silence stretched between the three of them.

Leto broke it. "Tell me about you," he said. "I haven't heard anything since the sailor, some years ago. You're quick enough to twit me about my lovers, Verry. Do you have one? Or several?"

Varania raised her eyes to meet his, and they were bleak, tired. "No one in particular," she said, mimicking his words from before. She tried for the same, light tone she had been using throughout, but it fell flat. "Master Bellisti has begun asking the same questions, but I suppose I've never been as pretty as you and Mother."

That would have sounded bitter, once upon a time. Now it didn't. Now, if anything, Varania sounded relieved. Leto narrowed his eyes at her. "Is he pressuring you?" If Varania conceived and bore a child into Bellisti's house, the child would also be Bellisti's property, and if it was a mage, Bellisti's status would rise proportionally.

Varania pressed her lips together. "Just let me know that he would not frown upon it, if I were to take a lover," she said. "It's nothing I can't handle, Leto."

_Yet_ hung in the air between them. Mother was more forthcoming. "Don't worry about your sister, Leto. Varania can take care of herself, and Master is not the type to order his slaves to lie with men against their will, thank the Maker."

"And your mistress and _her_ mother?" Leto muttered, feeling anger knot in his stomach.

"Mistress Aster died, three summers ago," Varania told him. "Really, Leto. It's fine."

Leto hummed, noncommittal. "Mother?"

"Oh, nothing has changed much for me," Mother said. "I sew Mistress's gowns, and Miss Xenia's, and do the occasional repair work for the master and guests to the house."

"Her work is more beautiful than ever," Varania said. "Even the society nobles have been complimenting it."

Leto nodded. "I haven't seen anything in Minrathous to equal it."

Mother blushed. "That can't be true, Leto! With the silks they have to work on here and designs that take three seamstresses to make up—"

"The quality _still_ isn't like yours."

She beamed at him. "Well, what do you know anyway? My son's a warrior, not a seamster. It's been getting harder to do the fancy work lately. Age comes to us all, and sometimes my hands ache a bit, but the mistress and Miss Xenia are still pleased, mostly, and I suppose that's what matters."

The door opened before Leto could ask more questions, and Amila bustled in. "It's about time you outfitted for the match, fighter—" she stopped up short, seeing Mother and Varania. "I didn't know you were expecting company."

"Neither did I," Leto told her. "Amila—my mother, Sulin, and my sister, Varania, come with their master from Ventus. He gave them leave to seek me out."

Amila's face cleared, and she smiled, seeing Varania's staff. "You never told me your sister was a mage," she said. She curtsied. "Pleased to meet you—Varania, is it? I'm Amila, quartermaster and outfitter at Emerus's School of Combat."

Varania gave her a wan smile. "Please don't, mistress. I'm not very important. Just a hedgewitch, really, and the slave of my betters just like my brother."

"Hah! If our Leto plays his cards right, he may not be a slave much longer, or at least no ordinary slave," Amila said, proudly. "I have fifty silvers on him taking the entire thing, and I think Emerus has even more. Good odds too, though I think I'll be glad I got in early. He's been something special from day one, you know. The moment I first saw him with a spear in his hand—you get a feeling about the good ones, you know, after twenty years in the business."

"I suppose you must," Mother said, amused.

"You'll be watching, in the stands?" Amila asked. "You couldn't on your own, of course, but if your master's here?"

"I think our master or his daughter will attend a few fights in the tournament," Varania confirmed. "It's likely one or both of us might get to see Leto fight."

"Will I see you again?" Leto asked, aware that he would have to say goodbye to Mother and Verry any moment to let Amila help him into his armor and show him his weapons, and hating the idea. He reached out to Varania, and she clasped his hands.

"Look for us, before or after the fighting," she urged him. "Not during—keep your eyes on your opponents during _that_. I don't know if the master will let us come back to you like this—"

"But we'll ask him," Mother said. "We'll beg, if we have to. Oh, Leto—"

She embraced him again, kissed him. So did Varania. "Be careful," Verry whispered, fiercely, in his ear. "Don't let them kill you—not for the most important magister in the Imperium."

"I'll do my best," Leto promised. His chest ached, and his eyes stung again, and then Amila was ushering Mother and Verry out of the room and going for his greaves and gauntlets, waiting for him atop a chest.

"Well, they're quite charming," Amila was saying, "for elves and slaves and all. The mage doesn't look much like you and your mother, of course. Is she your sister or half-sister? But she has a lovely humility about her, especially for a mage. Nice to see in a girl of her station. I hope they do come back. I would love to hear more about what it was like for you all back in Seheron—oh, Ventus, of course—forgive me. Funny, how the story sometimes becomes our reality, in our world—"

She prattled on, happy and excited, talking about his opponents today in the melee, their histories, who used which weapon, whom he needed to watch and whom he would find easy to defeat, and Leto tried to listen. Amila's experience and avid enjoyment of the combat games had been valuable to him over the years, and more than once. He had still not fought a melee in months, and never once on this scale. But somehow, right now, that seemed far less important to him than whether or not Mother and Varania would be up in the stands, watching him.

* * *

**iii. **

There was a gap in Iwan's defense. Leto thrust into it, into Iwan's sweating, exposed thigh. The rogue preferred lighter armor, mobility over protection, but today it would be his undoing. Leto knew at once his thrust was fatal. Hot blood spurted—as always, shockingly crimson. It spattered over Leto's face and chest and across the sands of the arena, staining the ground black in moments.

Iwan fell, unable to stand, but it would be minutes before he died. His mouth opened and closed, mutely. Leto looked up, at Magister Danarius, seated low in the stands at the very center of the arena under a crimson pavilion to keep out the sun. The magister's face was in shadow, but the gesture of his hand was clear: _You may finish it_. Sometimes the magister preferred the losers die slowly.

Leto rotated his spear in his hand, building momentum, and brought the point down through Iwan's skull, feeling the bone splinter and crunch beneath him. The mercenary's loved ones would not thank him for it at burial, but it was by far the quickest way to assure a clean kill. Iwan's eyes emptied. His surprised gasping ceased. Leto planted his foot on the man's torso and leveraged his spear free. A foul smell arose to mingle with the metallic stench of hot blood and sweat on the sand—Iwan had soiled himself.

Leto closed his eyes, breathing through his mouth, and stepped away from the corpse, standing at attention.

The arena was still roaring. Flowers and coins rained down on the sands, along with some of the more intimate gifts Varania had noted when she and Mother had visited three weeks ago. Men and women stamped their feet, clapped, cheered. In this moment, Leto was their champion, their hero—indeed, as Linden had once said, he was their god. Next week, they would be just as happy to see him impaled on someone else's sword or cleft by someone else's axe.

But there would be no next week, because this was the last fight in Danarius's tournament, and Leto, at last, truly was a champion. From this moment on, everything in his life would change.

The air, where it met the blood from Leto's own wounds, was as much sweet as stinging. He relished the feel of it, against cheek, forearm, and heel. Each of the three cuts ran blood, but they were superficial, and Iwan had not taken the precaution of poisoning his blades. Stupid. Far stupider to try and take knives to fight a spearman. Iwan had most likely trusted to his ability to get inside Leto's guard. He had failed, almost entirely.

The roar of the arena was fading to a murmur, and Leto knew that meant that Magister Danarius had risen. He opened his eyes.

The magister was a tall, rangy man, not handsome, with rough, craggy features, something of a large nose, and a wide mouth. He had a full beard but no mustache. Both it and his hair were black, shot through with silver, and looked oiled, even from a distance. He wore the grandest robes Leto had ever seen and radiated power—pure, cold authority.

The blue jewel in the tip of his black, polished staff gleamed, and his voice rose over the stadium, magically amplified so all could hear. "Congratulations, little wolf. I confess, I had hoped this fortnight that it might be you who won the ultimate prize in my little contest. Such prowess as we have seen from you is rare indeed, and I am certain all here feel privileged to have witnessed your ferocity, speed, and determination."

The magister paused for the resulting cheer, another shower of flowers and coin from the stands. It went on for almost another full minute before the crowd quieted again.

"Indeed," the magister said then, "you have earned your place in my house. Are you pleased with the honor?"

There was only one response Leto could possibly make to this. He bowed deeply, until a blue light floated down from Danarius to hover in front of his face.

"Speak," Danarius urged him. "We will hear."

Leto licked his lips and answered. "How could I be anything but pleased, my lord? You are generous, and I hope that I will serve you well." It gave him a turn to hear his own voice, hoarse and rough after his exertions, magnified and soaring over the arena like the magister's.

"You have a gracious tongue," Danarius replied. "It pleases me." He turned to address the crowd at large. "I have experimented more with lyrium and its uses than any mage in the Imperium. This worthy champion shall be the beneficiary of my research—my most valued and valuable servant. You will have power, little wolf, and a place at my side worthy of all your skill. Are you pleased?"

Again, Leto answered that he was, and across the arena, he saw the magister smile, as if he had done something clever. Then the magister turned to Emerus, who, Leto saw, had been given a seat not too far away from Danarius himself. "I realize, of course, that the loss of such a gifted warrior can only grieve his former master," the magister said. "Worthy Emerus, you will be compensated your protégé's value and then some, and I trust your school will not be too much damaged by his performance here."

Emerus bowed and stammered something Leto did not hear but the magister clearly did. He waved a hand, dismissing Leto's former master with it.

"And, of course, I have not forgotten my promise to my champion either," Danarius said. "Along with his very special place in my house and by my side, he shall have the boon of his choosing. Tell me, little wolf, what is your desire? What can your master do for you?"

A dozen thoughts passed through Leto's head then—a plot of land for himself and security to retire to it after the magister had no further need of him; titles and honors and riches; some great, sweeping charity or grant to others that would cement his magnanimity in the minds of these people forever.

Then he saw Mother and Varania in the stands—Verry's bright hair a beacon next to Bellisti, his wife, and his daughter. Both were crying, hands pressed to their hearts in so much the same way. And Leto did not ask for any of the things that had previously occurred to him at all.

"My lord," he said into the floating blue orb, "the honor you grant is enough for me. But I have a family—mother and sister, called Sulin and Varania, in bondage to the farmer Sergius Bellisti outside Qarinus. If you would grant me a boon, it would be that they be freed—free to go where they choose and make their own lives as they will. I want nothing more in all this world."

He saw Mother and Varania flush with surprise, pleasure. Gratitude. And he beamed, feeling a deep sense of well-being, along with a curious emptiness. To his surprise, the magister laughed. "The boy is sweet! Isn't he sweet? How lovely—to ask only freedom for his mother and sister, nothing else! Done! It shall be as you say!" He murmured something to a man seated behind him that his amplification spell did not catch, then clapped his hands. "Now, take him away," he called aloud. "My champion is weary and wounded. Take him to my house. Tend to his wounds and clean him up. We will speak more, little wolf, once you have fully healed and can begin my service."

Uniformed servants came up on either side of Leto to lead him away, and Danarius turned back to the crowd to dismiss them. But Leto did not hear what he said. He looked back at Mother and Varania, waving and kissing their hands to him, until they were lost to him, too distant, too caught up in the press of the crowd for him to even pick out the flame of Verry's hair anymore.

_Be well. Be well. Find me. _

He hadn't been to a Chantry in years, but the words, he felt, were a kind of prayer.

* * *

**iv. **

"You're looking well," the magister observed, smiling at him. The expression did little to warm his eyes, which, up close, were pale gray, almost colorless.

Leto bowed, feeling prickles of discomfort dancing up and down his spine. In the two weeks since he had come to the magister's house, he had been well treated—better fed and clothed than in his entire life so far. His wounds were completely healed, with even the scars beginning to fade away, and he felt strong and well.

In the entire two weeks, he had seen only a succession of clean male and female servants in uniform that had brought him his food and drink, clothes and medicine in a small room in the servant's quarters, and said very little to him. He had been allowed to roam where he would in the servant's quarters and in the kitchen garden, and quietly discouraged from disturbing the freemen and women in the main parts of the magister's house. He was, he had been told, to focus, for the time being, only on healing. The magister wanted him back at his full strength.

Leto had not seen the magister since the last fight of the tournament, and he had had no reason to doubt his new master. But now, in the man's presence, he found he did not like him. No—the magister repelled him, in a way that he could not qualify, that was mostly unrelated to the long, white fingernails or the scent of perfume coming from his hair and clothes that did not completely hide the scent of blood.

"You sent for me, master," Leto said, simply.

He could not keep his eyes from darting around the room. It was not the place he had expected to speak with his new master for the first time. Instead of a hall or a study, they were in large stone room below the main level, windowless and lit by furnace and torchlight, and mostly barren. There were only a few features of note: a large, stone table in the center of the room, a burning brazier, and several drainage grates set into the floor.

The room set his skin crawling—or perhaps that was the buckets of a strange, glowing blue ore that Leto realized must be lyrium. Raw lyrium—an impossible quantity of the rare substance he had only heard of before. It seemed to pulse, almost to hum. His gaze kept returning to it, even more than to the bare walls, the stone table, and the grates set in the floor.

"I did send for you," the magister confirmed. "Are you ready to receive the benefits of all my research, to fill the place waiting for you at my side?"

Leto bowed again. "What must I do, Master?"

Danarius's wide mouth smiled. "Today—only remain still." He snapped his fingers, and the two male servants that had escorted Leto down to the room took hold of him, along with the two guards the magister had had posted at the door. "Take off his clothes and bind him to the table," he ordered.

Leto was already fighting, kicking, writhing, trying to bite and scratch and strike, to kill, but the four men already had hold of him. They were taking his boots, his trousers, his tunic, and his underthings. The cold of the room bit, and the servants' hands were unyielding.

Leto cried with helplessness, with fear and rage. He cursed at them. "Damn you, let me go! This isn't what I wanted! I thought—let me go, damn you! Maker! Maker!"

Then he saw the shackles that had been hidden behind the legs of the stone table. He roared and actually managed to wrench his arm free from one of the men, before they had him again, and one of them had a knife to his throat. He spat at them. If they had given him a weapon—even a knife—but he had nothing.

"Gag him," his master ordered. "I can't have the creature's bellowing distracting me."

Leto was forced to the table and shackled down, wrist and ankle. A gag of leather and rags was forced between his teeth. It filled his mouth so that he could hardly breathe, and all his cursing and pleading came out strangled, muffled. Only the tears ran down his face unrestrained. He struggled against his bonds uselessly, writhing, freezing in the chill air of the dungeon—for it was a dungeon, he realized. Or a laboratory.

Fear was a sickness, a weakness. Leto thought he had been afraid before—of Mistress Bellisti's displeasure or Miss Xenia's petulant lies, of the lash, of visitors to Bellisti's house, of larger boys at the gymnasium, death on a Qunari blade, death on the blade of another fighter in the games. It was nothing to the overwhelming nausea he felt now, the watery churning of his stomach and the trembling that had overtaken his every limb, this haze of terror in his head. The magister would not kill him; he knew that much. Even a madman would not have spent so much coin and effort hosting such a massive tournament to kill his champion mere weeks later. No—the magister had something worse planned for him.

Danarius walked over to the table. Leto shrank from him, as far as he could—only centimeters. Danarius placed a cool palm on his bare chest. "Now, now, Fenris, little wolf," he said. "Stop all this fighting. This next part might hurt a little, for a while, but it will all be worth it in the end. I promised you power, my Fenris. But first you have to receive it."

_Leto_, he wanted to scream. _My name is Leto! Leto of Ventus! Just let me go, or kill me! I did not know! I don't want whatever you plan to give me!_

But the magister wasn't seeing the elf named Leto on his table. He didn't see a person at all. Through the veil of his fear, Leto saw Danarius was looking at him only like an experiment—a thing—to be manipulated, forged, or changed as he would. He was the magister's property, to do with what he wished, and only now did Leto grasp the true extent of what that meant.

"Now," the magister said quietly. "The process I have in mind is something like the valleslin tattoos the Dalish give to their adults, only I intend to use lyrium instead of ink. I've hypothesized that the effects on a living body, treated in such a fashion, could be . . . interesting, to say the least, and quite powerful."

His gray eyes glittered as he spoke, and Leto flinched beneath his hand.

_You're mad. You're mad! _

"The difficulty," Danarius continued, confidingly, "even aside from lyrium's volatility, is that lyrium, in its natural state, is a solid. Before it can be employed in such a fashion as I design, it must first be heated, with sufficient intensity that it becomes liquid enough to inject." His fingers stroked Leto's chest. "Don't worry, my Fenris. I have practiced on corpses and on animals—not extensively, it is true. Lyrium can be somewhat troublesome and expensive to obtain, even for a magister of the Imperium. But I think I have finally developed a technique that will permeate the skin without the shock and pain of it killing the subject. The lyrium itself might still kill you. As I have said, it is a volatile substance, and people have unpredictable reactions to it. But, as you know, I have taken _exquisite_ pains in choosing my subject." He smiled, a satisfied, catlike smile, and tapped his finger on Leto's chest.

Then he turned to a young woman Leto had not seen before, standing by silently in the shadows. Her well-styled black hair was not enough to fill out her hollow cheeks or shorten her overlong, horse-like, pale face. She had the same colorless, shining eyes as the magister, and she was holding a bound notebook and a quill in her hands. "Make sure you take careful notes, my apprentice," the magister said. "And be ready with your knife if he dies on the table. His blood, at least, must not go to waste."

"Yes, my lord," the woman said in a throaty alto.

"Give me the pen."

"Here, my lord."

One of the servants still in the room handed the magister an instrument more like a very fine paintbrush than a quill. The magister pulled a small pot from a pocket in his robes, placed it on the table by Leto's head, and uncapped it.

Then he began drawing lines in cold, wet ink—across Leto's chin, his neck, his belly. His arms and thighs and hands and feet. When the magister required aid, he would have two of the servants unchain Leto from the table momentarily to adjust his position—to cover him similarly all across his back side.

The feel of the magister's hands on his body was sick, wrong. Leto quivered. He tried to beg the magister to stop from around the gag, but his words were lost in a growling, saliva-trailing, animal groan. He closed his eyes to try and block it out. He tried to breathe in deeply through his nose to dispel the nausea.

_I am not here. This is not happening_.

But it was. Danarius's hands lingered as he painted the lines over Leto's body. His fingers stroked and squeezed. "Magnificent," he said every now and then. "Beautiful," and "Perfect."

"I couldn't have asked for a better subject," he said, trailing his fingers across the back side of Leto's inner thigh. "Oh, you should be quite spectacular when I am done with you, pet."

Leto vomited. The gag pushed the vomit back into his throat. Leto choked, and he was glad of it.

_Let it end. Let it just be over. _

But the magister unhooked his gag, and his sick spewed, foul and reeking, over the floor and the stone table. Leto coughed, nose and eyes both streaming, but he was breathing again, gasping, Danarius holding him by the hair up from the pool on the table.

"Squeamish now? You who so viciously split the skulls of your opponents in my arena?" He clucked his tongue softly. "It won't do, Fenris. It just won't do."

"My name is Leto," Leto said. His voice was hoarse.

The magister laughed. "Your name is what I say it is, my boy. Pet, dog, worm, _thing_." With each epithet, he tugged a little harder at Leto's hair. "You are mine. It pleases me to pay homage to my Dread Wolf of Seheron when I speak of you."

"I'm from Ventus."

"Oh, no, I don't think so. My champion is no common farm slave from Qarinus. He is a feral demon from the wilds of Seheron. All Minrathous heard the announcers say as much." Danarius, looking into Leto's eyes over the puddle of sick on the table, appeared amused. But there was a coldness behind his colorless gray eyes. "Say 'yes, my lord.'" He yanked on Leto's hair again.

Leto had been desperate to scream, to cry out before. Now he would not give this monster the satisfaction of a single word. Rebellious tears continued to leak from his eyes. His neck was beginning to ache from where Danarius was wrenching it up from the filthy table. He was cold all over.

The magister hummed, dissatisfied. Then he patted Leto's cheek. "You will learn," he said. He looked away, and over Leto's head, spoke to the attendants. "Come chain him up on his knees and clean this mess up. And you, fetch food and water. He'll die outright in this state."

"You must try to stop fighting me, boy," he said to Leto then. "You will only exhaust yourself, and I need you strong."

As brutal, unrelenting hands fastened the chains binding him in different positions, bearing him up on his knees on the table despite himself, Leto shook his head. "I will _never_ stop fighting," he said. "You have _no_ right—"

"I have every right, and you asked for this, slave," Danarius snapped, suddenly losing patience. "You _killed_ for it. To go beyond all we know of lyrium, that you were deemed worthy to be given power beyond any that your kind could ever dream of, and all but one or two mages on the bleeding edge—it is an honor. I thought you understood that." One of the attendants came forward with some water in a skin, a pear and a crust of bread on a plate. "Feed him," Danarius ordered the slave.

Leto glanced at the plate. He turned his mouth away from the attendant, from the food and water skin. He shut his mouth.

The woman in the shadows laughed. "Oh, he _is_ sweet," she said, in her low, husky voice. "He thinks he has a choice."

"You can tell, can't you, that he's only ever been the property of those who should be in chains right beside him?" Danarius agreed. "You are tiresome, boy. Do as I ask, or I shall make you."

"Make me then," Leto said, gruffly.

Danarius sighed. He extended his hand, and the woman handed him the little knife. In a single lunge over the now-clean stone table, the magister cut a shallow slice in Leto's forearm. Blood ran out, then, incredibly, upward, more akin to a mist than a liquid. The air shimmered, and rippled, and something was reaching out, toward his mind, _into_ it . . .

Bliss.

He was drifting on a red, hazy sea.

No longer cold. No longer sick. No longer terrified.

He only wanted to please his master.

**_Open your mouth_.**

He did.

**_Eat. Swallow. _**

He did.

His arm burned. His blood seemed to sing. But it was a long way off.

It didn't matter.

Only the voice in his head mattered.

Until he came to himself, and water was dribbling down a chin from a mouth into which a new gag had been placed. He was prone, chained face up to the table once more. Moreover, there were new, leather straps binding his arms and legs more securely to the table. Beside his head, Leto saw the cut the magister had sliced into his arm, scabbed over, almost healed.

The magister's face was over his, grave with concentration. He was holding some sort of instrument which at first appeared out of focus. Leto thought it was the paintbrush—but that didn't make sense. The magister had already traced designs all over his body. Leto squinted.

Then he saw the needle hovering over his chest. It glowed red hot, steaming with heat. The air around it warped with an eldritch blue light.

It penetrated his skin.

Every vein and artery in his body blazed. His vision went white, and every person and everything in the room vanished. The silent attendants, watching the magister do this to him. The woman apprentice, with her eager eyes and little knife. The magister himself, plying the needle. Every centimeter of Leto's skin tried to flee it, it seemed, but still the needle came. Still the lyrium came.

Leto convulsed. But there was nowhere to convulse to, so securely was he tied to the table.

Still the lyrium came.

Penetrating him. Filling him. He couldn't hold it. He wasn't made to. He would die. Be torn apart.

_Good._

He tore his voice out screaming against the gag, felt his nose begin to bleed, gushing out over his face unheeded.

And still the lyrium came, burning, blazing as it went.

"Relax, Fenris," someone was saying, sharply.

Who was Fenris? He didn't know.

Who was speaking?

He didn't know.

_My name is Leto. I'm from Ventus. This isn't what I wanted. _

_Maker, Verry . . . Mother . . . _

There was a screaming in his ears. It couldn't be his. He'd already torn his throat out.

_Like a wolf._ _Fenris._

_My name is Leto._

_I'm from Ventus. _

_This isn't what I wanted. _

_This isn't . . ._

_My name is Leto. _

_My name is . . . _

_My name . . . _

"Relax, Fenris."

* * *

**A/N: In effect, this is really a character death chapter. From this point on, the elf Leto no longer exists. Even when Fenris discovers he did once, he can never traverse the gap and recover the boy he was, before Danarius, before the experiments, and similarly to another character I wrote about years ago, he may experience flashes of the life he knew before, but I don't think he will ever recover all of his memories. **

**Honestly, you could probably write a couple dozen stories of who Leto was, how he came to compete for an honor the magister Danarius offered and how he was qualified to win it, what his relationship was like with his mage sister and his mother before he asked that magister to free them. All we ever learn is just that. But this is my version: a brilliant, cool, and ambitious young polyglot, a killer by necessity, and a trained soldier, arrogant and strong and beautiful but not discourteous, loving only two people in all the world, but fiercely loyal to those two. And by no means deserving of the fate that befell him.**

**LMS**


	15. Cassandra: The Peace of the Maker

**Characters: **Cassandra Pentaghast, Seeker Byron, off-page Spirit of Faith, OFC Elwina

**Pairings: **None

**AU Elements: **None

* * *

**9:20 Dragon**

**The Citadel of the Seekers of Truth, Val Royeaux, Orlais**

It is dark in the meditation chamber. Night follows day follows night, and I remain. I wake. I rise. I exercise. I sing the Chant. I eat. I observe the necessary duties. I lay down. I sleep again.

Food has no taste. Or if it does, it does not matter. It is nourishing. It strengthens me.

_The one who repents, who has faith,  
Unshaken by the darkness of the world,  
She shall know true peace._

That is what Seeker Byron told me when he brought me to the cell where the Seekers conduct their Vigil. I am to pray to the Maker. I am to meditate. When I have achieved repentance and know true peace, then I will be ready to join the Seekers.

I do not know what repentance is.

I do not know what peace is.

* * *

_The Light shall lead her safely  
Through the paths of this world, and into the next.  
For she who trusts in the Maker, fire is her water.  
As the moth sees light and goes toward flame,  
She should see fire and go towards Light.  
The Veil holds no uncertainty for her,  
And she will know no fear of death, for the Maker  
Shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword._

That is from canto ten of the Canticle of Transfigurations. I do not know what is meant by "The Light." Most probably, it is what they call a metaphor. Figurative language has never been my specialty. Words have never been my specialty.

I know shields. I know swords. Could trusting in the Maker mean trusting in Him as I trust in my shield and sword? Could it mean making Him a part of me in the same way they are when I fight? Is that what it is to go towards the Light?

I have no fear of demons beyond the Veil or of death. I have not feared death since I was six years old. I fear nothing and no one. But perhaps that is because I trust in myself, and not because I trust in the Maker.

I must endeavor to be better.

* * *

I have been in this cell for over two hundred days. Seeker Byron brought me today's bread and water. Usually it is Caretaker Elwina.

The Seeker was sad and worried when he saw me. He said perhaps I had been unprepared for the Vigil. He said perhaps Uncle Vestalus should not have sent me to the Order.

"I cannot end your suffering, child," he told me. "Only the Maker himself can do that now. I say a prayer for you in the Chantry daily that he will take pity on you."

I do not know what he meant. '"The Maker is with us!'" I told him. '"His light shall be our banner,/ And we shall bear it through the gates of that city and deliver it/ To our brothers and sisters awaiting their freedom within those walls,/ At last, the Light shall shine upon all of creation,/ If we are only strong enough to carry it.'"

He kissed my forehead. I do not know why.

* * *

"_Whatsoever passes through the fire  
Is not lost, but made eternal;  
As air can never be broken nor crushed,  
The tempered soul is everlasting!"  
_

I believe the purpose of the Vigil is that the Seekers may pass through the fire. To temper the soul, and not the body. It is not enough that we are strong. It is not enough that we use our weapons well. It is not enough that we be trained in the identification and subjugation of nests of apostates, or in ending Templar corruption. To do all of these things, our souls must first be purified. To do any of these things, our souls must first be purified.

I do not believe I have had a pure soul. I dwelt on other things—on pride and vengeance. I believed I sought only justice, first for myself and then for Anthony. But justice was not what I truly sought.

I think repentance means that I must not dwell on my own pride. I think it means that I must not pursue vengeance. If Anthony is at the Maker's side, he no longer requires it. I think that if I am to seek justice, I must first seek the Maker's will in all things. Including his will regarding me.

I think that is also what it means to go towards the Light. In the Chant of Light, the faithful are to say "I will not forsake You, even if I forget myself."

I think sometimes we must forget ourselves.

* * *

Light.

I am bathed in Light. It is everywhere.

It is _beautiful_.

It's peace.

It's _love_.

I'm loved.

He _loves_ me. The Maker _loves_ me. He loves all His children. Suddenly I know that, as I haven't in what seems like an eternity. I feel what love is. I _remember_ what love is.

How could I have forgotten?

I'm gasping, weeping. I open my eyes, and I'm awake. How long have I been sleeping? It feels like far longer than the night.

I roll over, out of my bedclothes and off my bedroll, on my stomach to the floor. It's stone, without any rug or mat. It's cold, and the cold goes through me like a knife. Yet somehow, I'm _grateful_. Suddenly, I'm stretching out, embracing the cold, putting my cheek against the stone, just to feel how uncomfortable it makes me.

I can see my fingers in the moonlight, streaming from the window of the cell. They look like the fingers of the embalmed bodies in the Grand Necropolis. Past my hand, I can see the wall of the cell, above my sleeping mat and the disordered blankets. There are charcoal markings there—so many I can hardly count them.

Just breathing feels wonderful. How can the very air be sweet? But it is. I'm sobbing and laughing, and I don't know why, except I _feel_ like it. I _feel_, and I know it is because the Maker has turned his gaze upon me.

I never truly sing the Chant. Some people have the voice for it. Seeker Byron, for example. He has a rich, full baritone I always love hearing, no matter how much I resent the hour he insists we be up to attend prayers. But my voice cracks and squeaks and never seems to come out on the appropriate pitch. So I just speak the words, along with every other pitchy and unpracticed denizen of the Chantry.

Tonight, I could not sing, even if I wanted to. I am crying too hard, but they're tears of joy. Still I manage to croak the words.

"_All sins are forgiven! All crimes pardoned!  
Let no soul harbor guilt!  
Let no soul hunger for justice!  
By the Maker's will I decree  
Harmony in all things.  
Let Balance be restored  
And the world given eternal life."_

* * *

Seeker Byron found her there the next morning, snot-nosed and blotchy-faced, but still beaming like a fool. Cassandra didn't care. When he opened the door to her cell, she leapt to her feet and flung herself into his arms.

He embraced her instantly. "Welcome back, Seeker. I see you have completed your Vigil. Would you like some breakfast?"

Cassandra kissed the old man's cheek impulsively. His mustache tickled, and she laughed. "I _would_ like breakfast! Is there ham? And fruit? Ooh, just porridge with cream sounds unbelievable."

"The porridge, I think, this morning. You have been in seclusion for some time, Cassandra."

"How long?" Cassandra asked. "There were so many marks on the cell wall, I couldn't be bothered to count them. I know it was a long time."

It wasn't uncommon for trainees to fail the Vigil, to die of the intense spiritual and physical strain they must pass through if they were to possess all the power and abilities of a full member of the order. The actual time the Vigil took varied. Some initiates passed the trial in as few as three weeks. Some were in seclusion for months before they emerged again.

"Almost an entire year," Seeker Byron told her. "We had almost despaired of you, Cassandra. But I told the others that if you had not died after so long, you would come through it yet."

A year! Cassandra could hardly conceive of it. Her sixteenth birthday had come and gone while she had undergone the Vigil. She had not so much as marked it. She had hardly marked anything but her devotions to the Maker. She closed her eyes and sent a silent prayer to Him for favoring her at last.

_I'll do something with it. I vow it. _

Seeker Byron kept his arm around her as they walked together, through the halls of the old castle and toward the kitchen where the caretaker would be with supplies. This was less from sentiment, Cassandra thought, and more to keep her standing. She found she was very weak, much weaker than she had thought she would be. She distinctly remembered exercising each day to keep her strength up. _I suppose a year of bread and water will weaken a person, no matter what precautions she takes. _

"Do you realize," Seeker Byron said, "that you will be the youngest Seeker to join our order in nearly two hundred years?"

Cassandra laughed. "Don't tempt me to vanity now. I am probably the slowest to complete her vigil since the order's founding."

Her friend and mentor smiled, and Cassandra almost burst into fresh tears with the affection she felt for him. How could she have forgotten? "Is not believing no one else could possibly be as stupid and wayward as yourself also a form of vanity?" he asked her. "Look it up for yourself in the histories, if you wish. What matters is that you lived. Edwina!" he called as they stepped into the kitchen.

The elderly elf woman rose from where she had been sitting beside the kitchen hearth. When she saw Cassandra, her hand rose to her mouth, and her golden eyes filled with tears. "Maker be praised," she said. "I had started to think . . ."

"We all had," Seeker Byron said. "Fortunately, Cassandra is finally ready to rejoin us. Now, how about some porridge?"

* * *

**A/N: As the world goes mad and shuts down, here's a story about a girl coming _out_ of isolation. **

**I hope the person switch to first-person present and internal in this chapter worked as I meant it to. So far, every ficlet I've written for this project has been in third-person limited, and past tense. But I found I needed a different, more intimate style to represent what was happening in Cassandra's head during her Vigil. I'm okay with that. I think I will write poetry and letters as part of this project as well, down the line. There's no one consistent voice, or even genre (for instance, Varric feels like he's in a novel in the French tradition, Katja could have stepped out of Dickens, and Tirrian could be in an opera). That's really half the point. **

**Anyway, it's a nice, short chapter after that last monster. All excerpts from the Chant of Light are of course credited to the writers of Dragon Age. **

**Leave a review if you've got something to say,**

**LMS**


	16. Gwyn: Firebrand

**Characters: **F!Cousland (Gwyn), Nan, Bryce Cousland, William Cousland, OC dogs Sella and Borf, OFCs Lissa and Nanda, Maric Theirin, Cailan Theirin, Berchan Wulff, OMC Deric Wulff, Izot Wulff, OFC Pearl, Vaughan Kendells, Anora Mac Tir, Loghain Mac Tir, Rendon Howe, and various other named characters mentioned but off-page or unnamed altogether, even if they are on-page

**Pairings:** Bryce/Eleanor Cousland; unrequited Vaughan Kendells/Anora Mac Tir and Vaughan Kendells/Izot Wulff; teased but dismissed Cailan Theirin/Cousland; discussed but as-yet-unofficial Cailan Theirin/Anora Mac Tir; and past Maric Theirin/Rowan Guerrin.

**AU Elements:** William Cousland, father to Bryce and grandfather to Fergus and the younger Cousland sibling, is not dead yet but is still teyrn in Highever. He is some thirty years younger than most would extrapolate from canon but is, nevertheless, at the time this fic takes place, elderly and failing, and Bryce Cousland, currently teyrn-in-waiting, has begun to take on many of the duties of his position.

* * *

**9:20 Dragon**

**The Royal Court, Denerim, Ferelden**

**i.**

Gwyn had been so _excited_ about going to court. Fergus had been every year for the past five, but he was seventeen now, and this year, Father and Grandfather were letting him stay back with Mother in charge of Highever when they went to the Landsmeet. Gwyn would be accompanying them instead, two years younger than Fergus had been the first time he had been to court. He had called her a pampered little brat; she had called him a jealous old jackass. Mother had made her wash out her mouth with Nan's lavender soap, and then both Mother and Fergus had hugged and kissed her goodbye at the docks.

The voyage _to_ Denerim had been every bit as lovely as she had thought it would be. With the wind in her hair and the smell of salt on the breeze, she could understand why Mother loved sailing so much. She hadn't understood at all how Nan had got so sick, but at least she had tried to be nice about how green her nurse had looked all through the trip. Taken over storytelling at night too, though Nan complained the stories she'd decided to tell were much too gory and tragic. And when she wasn't nursing her nurse, Father and Grandfather had let her climb up in the rigging, so long as one of the sailors was watching. She'd learned to tie at least six different kinds of knot, how to throw her little knife accurately even when the sea was choppy, and enough new words about ships and sailing to write a whole little glossary for Aldous when they returned to Highever. She had learned a few _other_ words too—more words that Mother would wash her mouth out for using, but Father and Grandfather laughed at. For about two days, she had had a good time with these words, but then she decided she didn't actually like the way they felt in her mouth or how she sounded when she used them. Or Father and Grandfather laughing at her.

Then they had sailed into the port at Denerim, and the city had come into view, and Gwyn could swear she had almost danced off of the ship. She could look right up the Drakon River from the port, and on the docks, she had seen ships far bigger than the ones that came to Highever's little port, off a river and with its more difficult surrounding currents. Ships from Kirkwall and Antiva City and Llomeryn, and those were just the ones that she identified. Off the docks, she could hear the sound from the markets, though she couldn't see them, and they _sounded_ bigger than Highever's. Fergus had told her they had at least six different theaters in Denerim, and Gwyn had just _itched_ to go off and find each one.

But then Nan, pale and wan but doing much better on solid ground, had taken her by the hand and insisted they go get settled at the house Grandfather kept in Denerim before they did any exploring.

The house Grandfather kept in Denerim was as lovely as the ship, in its own way. Grandfather had rented a couple of horses, including a pony for Gwyn, so they could go to any riding parties and on any hunts they were invited to during their stay, and he had brought Sella and Borf from the kennels back home, so Gwyn felt right at home the moment they walked into the yard.

The inside of the house was smaller than Castle Cousland, of course, but it had also been built more recently, and both of those together meant that it was warmer, and Grandfather had taken steps to make the house feel comfortable too. There were beautiful tapestries of hunting scenes and constellations and the family hanging from the walls. Gwyn recognized the work; Mother, her ladies, and Nan had made most of them back home in Highever. Grandfather even had a funny little one that Gwyn herself had made last year, of a griffon in a field of marigolds. Gwyn was both happy and embarrassed when she saw it, hanging in a place of honor in the great hall behind the dais. The stitching was uneven, and the griffon's head was about the size of a crow's. But Grandfather had still kept it to hang up in his Denerim house.

She thought she had got off on the wrong foot with some of the servants. They spoke in a different accent from the servants back home—sharper and quicker, with some slang Gwyn didn't know, and so thick that it took Gwyn a little bit to understand them every time they said something. Then she thought she had surprised Lissa and Nanda when she had started to help them unpack her things and set up her room and ask them about their families and the ways life was different in the capital.

"You have an awful lot of questions, miss," Nanda had laughed.

"I don't mean to offend," Gwyn had said. "I can be quiet, if you would rather not answer. I just think people can't do all the same kind of work here in Denerim that they do in Highever—not all together like this—and if I have something to say about it when I get home, my tutor will know I didn't 'empty my head with court frivolities' on my trip away after all. I've already drawn him a sketch of the ship we came over on and made up a glossary of all the navigation terms I learned. And I was curious. We tend to be more informal, back home."

Nanda had laughed again, staring at her with wide, golden eyes. "Maker's breath! I wasn't criticizin', miss. I—you know we can do that, if you like," she had added, half reaching for the extra pillow and pillowcase Gwyn was folding to put away. She didn't like more than three pillows on her bed.

"If I don't help you here, Nan will be after me to help her air her wardrobe. Please keep me busy? It'll be so much smellier in there," Gwyn had explained.

Lissa had laughed then. "Nanda, she's Cousland, en't she?" she had said. "They're not like the other fancy folk that go to court. You remember Lady Eleanor from last fall? _She_ can't keep still for a mo' either. Sorry, miss," she said to Gwyn. "Only the second time she's been back. If you want to grease the sills so we can air the room proper, the grease pot and rag's over there." She had pointed with her chin, and Gwyn had smiled at her and felt much better.

Nanda had relaxed too, and the two chambermaids had told her a little about their families back at the alienage, the shops, the market, and the fishing in the Drakon. They'd gone from the initial lie about how pretty Gwyn looked to Lissa laughing instead about how much like Grandfather Gwyn acted, and by the time Nan had stormed into her room in a temper about why she was lollygagging about like a lazy slattern, Gwyn was chatting happily with both Lissa and Nanda, brushing off her last articles of clothing, the final touch before absolutely everything was all in order and put away.

Gwyn had gone to sleep after a wonderful fish dinner, thinking about trips to Fergus's six theaters, hunting in the king's woods, maybe meeting another boy or girl who could foster in Highever for a while, like Nathaniel Howe had done for a few months last year. Father absolutely refused to let her or Fergus foster out themselves— "I would miss you far too much," he said—but he had no objections to hosting other people. She would meet Prince Cailan too. King Maric had come to stay with them in Highever three times during tours of Ferelden, but the prince had always been staying back at court with Teyrn Mac Tir, and once, one of his uncles. He was younger than Fergus—only fifteen—but that was of course five years older than Gwyn was. He probably wouldn't want to come stay at Highever, or even to speak with her, but it would be nice to meet him anyway. They said he was as handsome as the king, and charming and high-spirited with it, fond of stories and songs and of the theater, just like she was.

She had been so _excited_ about going to court.

Then she had woken up this morning in Grandfather's Denerim house.

Gwyn really didn't think she would have had a _huge_ objection to wearing a dress; she understood that court was different from the country and that the first time she appeared at court, she had to represent the family well. Tunics and breeches were for outdoors work, or for playing with close friends a couple of days into a visit. Dresses showed honor to a new acquaintance, or to a guest, or at the table, and Gwyn didn't have a problem with that. Mostly. But right after breakfast this morning, Nan had put her in the _worst one_—a stiff, itchy, uncomfortable velvet, with fussy little puffs on the arms with blue ribbons on, too long and narrow in the skirt for any running or playing at _all_, even if she made friends to play with.

The pale pattern, green and gold like the laurels on the Cousland field, would be impossible to keep clean, but the moment she got it dirty, she knew _exactly _the scolding she would be in for. Then Nan had made her sit still for an hour while she bobbed around with crimping and curling irons and _more_ ribbons. Gwyn felt less like a person and more like a doll every minute—and she'd never even _liked_ dolls.

And Nan had been so pleased at the end of it all—just about beaming, and saying over and over again, "If only the Lady Eleanor could see! Oh, she'd just about die to look at you. You look just as you should, child."

"Uncomfortable and awkward, wishing I was anyplace else?" Gwyn had said, under her breath.

Nan had clucked her tongue and swatted at her, not getting anywhere near her, really. Nan only actually slapped her when she'd been very, very bad.

But Grandfather and Father had been pleased with her too, looking splendid themselves in brocade and satin, with short capes in the Cousland blue and boots so polished that the light shone in them. Father had only laughed at her complaints. "You get used to it, pup," he had told her. "You do us proud."

Gwyn had sighed at that and tried to stop fidgeting with her sleeves. A Cousland did her duty, after all.

Then they had got to court. Gwyn had been presented to King Maric at his morning audience, and instead of greeting him informally, like a friend of Father and Mother and Grandfather who had been to stay with them three times, been riding with her and Fergus—along with Grandfather, but still—and once played with the dogs with her for a whole half hour, Gwyn had to curtsey and bow her head and wait for the king to say something polite and boring about being glad she had finally come to Denerim to visit. He'd introduced her to the prince, sitting beside him, looking beautiful but really about as bored as Gwyn felt by this point, but Gwyn hadn't had a chance to say anything at all to Cailan before the line had moved along. But the king had wanted to keep Father and Grandfather beside him to talk to between audiences for the next two hours, and Gwyn had been obliged to stand with Nan at the side of the room until the king dismissed them.

As Gwyn stood at the side of the room, trying not to make faces, or squirm, or wander around, or otherwise do anything to disgrace Father and Grandfather, she had reflected that the morning might not have been so bad if Nan had let her stay with the others and listen to the king's audience. It would have been interesting to see how he handled his petitions, just to see what kinds of petitions he got, and if they were at all like the ones Grandfather—or Father, more and more—sometimes handled at Castle Cousland. But from the wall, she couldn't hear over a quarter of what the king said to anyone, or anyone said to the king. When noblemen and women moved in front of her and Nan, she couldn't even see them all, but Nan wouldn't let her move to a better spot.

She hadn't expected court to be _boring_.

Finally, the king's morning audience had ended, and Father and Grandfather moved away with Maric, and oddly, Prince Cailan got up and started moving toward _her_, and all at once, Gwyn, who had been beginning to feel irritable and disagreeable and something like running off to the waterfront, had to fight harder than ever to keep from fidgeting. Suddenly, she just knew her hair was falling out of the curls and ribbons Nan had put it in into its usual flyaway mess, and she looked exactly like the shrieking barbarian her family was always teasing her that she actually was, thrust into a too-hot, too-long dress—like a child instead of the young lady Mother had told her she must be at court. _I must look exactly like the goat did, that time I put it in Fergus's best tunic_, she thought wildly.

The prince looked wonderful. He was almost more like a painting than a boy, really—a very well-done painting in a Chantry or a gallery—dressed in black and silver, with eyes like the summertime sky, sunbeam hair tied back neatly at the nape of his neck, and not a speck of dust anywhere on him. It was strange looking at him, almost hard to think of him as anything like a real person that would be king someday, and impossible to think he could ever be anything but perfect at court dress and court manners.

Gwyn missed Fergus.

"Lady Gwyn, is it?" the prince said, taking her hand and bowing over it with grace enough for a dancer. His hand was warm but dry. Gwyn's hand felt sweaty and far too small to her.

"Yes, Your Highness," Gwyn confirmed. Her voice came out sounding clipped and shaky.

Cailan flashed her a bright white smile. "It can't have been easy, standing here all morning long. It's boring enough for me, and at least I have a chair. My father bade me to come fetch you for luncheon. He'd like you and your father and grandfather to eat with us—just a dinner between friends before we have to have a really stuffy banquet. You can tell me all about your home in Highever. I understand you occasionally have some trouble with pirates."

"Nothing to speak of, Your Highness," Gwyn assured him. "I mean, they do come around now and then, usually early in the autumn before the rains start up again, but our people know how to defend themselves. We make sure of it. And even when they need a little help, most of the pirates know well enough to run when Mother shows up."

"The fearsome Seawolf of the Storm Coast! How could I forget?" the prince laughed. "No doubt you take after her."

Gwyn shook her head, feeling more at ease now. "Not as much as she would like. Most days I think Mother would like to forget she was ever the Seawolf and just be Lady Eleanor. And most days, she despairs of me _ever_ being much of a lady."

Cailan shook his head in mock sorrow. "Who would ever want to be a courtier when they could be a legendary Seawolf and appear in song and story? I don't understand it."

Gwyn grinned at him. "That's what _I'd_ like to know!" she said, emphatically.

"'Your Highness,'" Nan hissed from behind her.

The prince heard her. "'Cailan,' please, Mistress Pulver," he said, with another blinding grin. "Isn't that right?"

"T-that's right, Your Highness," Nan stammered. "Mistress Ceitrin Pulver. Been in service to Lady Eleanor almost twenty years now, and nurse to the children almost as long."

"'Cailan,'" the prince repeated. "We're all friends here, aren't we?"

Nan was actually blushing. "All due respect, Your Highness. You won't catch me calling the prince of my country by his given name. I know my place."

Cailan's blue eyes seemed to cool. "As you like, then. But you, Lady Gwyn—I hope we can be a little more informal?"

Gwyn hesitated, looked back at Nan, but Nan's expression didn't give her any clues. She looked back at Cailan, still smiling at her, and dipped a curtsey, with something of a saucy, ironic tilt to it that she wouldn't have dared add on to a curtsey to Mother but Father and Grandfather and Fergus would appreciate. "As _you_ like . . . Cailan. Isn't that how things go around here?"

Cailan laughed again. "Oh, I like you," he decided. "You'll do just fine. Clever girl, isn't she?" he asked Nan.

"Sometimes too clever for her own good, Your Highness," Nan replied, with a certain crispness that Gwyn recognized. She didn't like the prince, and actually, Gwyn wasn't too happy with the way he'd just complimented her like she wasn't even there either. But at least the prince liked her. That was a fine thing, wasn't it?

"Come on," Cailan urged, "let's go to luncheon. I'm nearly starved." He offered Gwyn his arm, and Gwyn knew well enough to take it, though it felt a little ridiculous, walking with a boy so much older than she was like she was almost grown-up herself. Holding his arm like she couldn't follow him perfectly well on her own, and leaving poor Nan to walk by herself behind them like one of Grandfather's dogs. "You must be hungry too. Boredom can work up quite an appetite. You'll like our cook—"

He led her through the halls of the palace, chatting all the way, and Gwyn felt she was unusually quiet the entire time. The prince was very kind—he invited her to go walking in the garden that afternoon with him to meet his friends and promised to introduce her to lords and ladies he knew that were closer to her own age. He talked with her about food and dogs and ponies and their voyage over—obviously trying to make her feel comfortable and to be friends. So why didn't she feel comfortable?

* * *

**ii.**

After a lunch of cold meat, bread, cheese, and fruit with Father, Grandfather, Prince Cailan, and King Maric, Cailan took Gwyn out to the garden like he promised. Nan followed them, just like before. At first, this made Gwyn feel awkward, but when they arrived in a pavilion filled with several other children and ladies and gentlemen closer to Cailan or Fergus's age, Nan fell back, took some sewing out of her reticule, sat on a bench with some other nurses and ladies-in-waiting, and started to chat. Gwyn realized that this was just how things were at court. Nan would be there if Gwyn needed her, would be watching even if she didn't, and she would let Gwyn know when it was time to go back home again. But at court, she couldn't be the absolute tyrant and overlord she was at Castle Cousland or at Grandfather's house here in the city. Here she was just another servant, and Gwyn was supposed to talk with the other noble boys and girls and not with her nurse.

When Gwyn realized this, she felt almost dizzy for a moment. Then, deliciously, naughtily _free_. Then she felt an odd sense of loss. Then she was meeting every noble boy and girl in the garden pavilion, and she didn't have time to feel much of anything about Nan anymore.

Cailan introduced her to Berchan and Deric Wulff, thirteen and eleven, the sons of Arl Gallagher Wulff, also visiting Denerim, and to the arl's daughter, Izot, who was a few years older. She met Lady Pearl, the thirteen-year-old daughter of Bann Parth, and Vaughan Kendells, son of the arl of Denerim, a sneering boy about Cailan's age that Gwyn disliked on sight. There were five or six others—enough that Gwyn knew there was no way she would remember them all right away—but one that she knew she wouldn't be able to forget.

Anora Mac Tir was the daughter of Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir, the hero of the Battle of the River Dane and the only other teyrn in Ferelden. She was also, quite simply, the prettiest girl that Gwyn had ever seen or heard of. She was prettier than Mother, prettier than Allison or Themis or anyone Gwyn had ever seen in or outside Highever. She was like something from a story.

Gwyn knew Anora was only fifteen, a few months younger than Cailan, but she already wore her hair up, and it was every bit as blonde as Cailan's. In a way, she looked like she could be the prince's real-life sister—Anora had blue eyes like he did too, but hers looked more like a pond in winter than a summer sky. Her face was different too—delicate instead of magnificent—and her lips were a perfect rose pink that Gwyn didn't think she had even painted there. Her gown was white, embroidered with gold thread and inset with pink panels, and it was perfectly spotless.

Cailan introduced her as his special friend. "She's almost a sister to me, really," he told Gwyn. "There is no one I care for more. Anora, this is Teyrn Cousland's granddaughter—Bryce's youngest, Gwyn. You'll take her on while she stays at court, won't you?" To Gwyn, he added, "Anora knows the ins and outs of this place better than I do. If she takes you in hand, you'll be just fine."

Anora smiled at Gwyn, and Gwyn felt as awkward and out of place as she had when Cailan had first come up to her. "Of course," Anora said, extending her hand up to Gwyn from where she sat on a cushioned bench. Gwyn took her hand—it was as pretty as the rest of her, with no rough callouses or dry skin from throwing knives, tying knots, or learning to shoot a bow. _There's still an ink stain on my finger from writing my glossary for Aldous_, she thought. _I hope she doesn't notice!_

"Welcome to Denerim, Lady Gwyn. This is your first visit, isn't it?"

Anora's voice was warm and kind, and Gwyn nodded. "Yes, my lady."

"None of that now," Anora instructed, with a silvery laugh. "We are peers, you and I, both the daughters of teyrns—or teyrns-in-waiting, anyway. We look up to no one, except _perhaps_ to His Royal Highness here and to his father—and that," she added, with a quirk of her eyebrows that somehow made Gwyn feel like the two of them were alone, even with so many others around, "is a big 'perhaps.' Let us be friends straight away. I shall call you Gwyn, and you call me Anora."

Gwyn looked sideways at Cailan. "You keep it informal around here, don't you?"

"Not precisely what you were expecting?" Cailan returned. "No doubt your worthy parents and grandfather taught you stiff court manners for your stay in Denerim, but I do hope you can indulge us."

The other boys and girls standing around all laughed, watching her, and Gwyn rushed to answer. "I'm not complaining. I never cared much for stiff court manners."

Cailan nodded, satisfied. "I knew that I liked you," he said.

"Sit with me, Gwyn," Anora invited her, making room on the bench beside her. Gwyn sat, gingerly, and Anora wrapped an arm around her in a welcoming kind of way, smiling down at her. "Tell us about your life in Highever. I don't believe any of us here has had the good fortune to head that way, and they say it's the very jewel of Ferelden."

Gwyn wrinkled her nose. "If you like," she said, "but I would rather hear about things here in Denerim, my l—"she caught herself at Anora's look. "Anora. Fergus—he's my brother, have you met him?" When several of them answered that they had, Gwyn continued, "He says that there are six theaters here in the city, so all of you can go to a different show every night in the week, if you like. Which is your favorite?"

Cailan took up this conversation thread up eagerly, telling her all about his favorite playwrights and different directors' interpretations of popular works, and Vaughan and Izot soon chimed in with their own, differing opinions, and a lively debate broke out. Anora allowed it, chiming in now and then about costume styles and the emotive capabilities of well-known actresses. She addressed many of her own comments to Gwyn, often with an additional remark on why this style was better than that, or how Gwyn would see for herself in a couple of weeks what she meant. There was something wonderful about the way she talked to Gwyn, like she already considered Gwyn a friend, someone on her own level.

Cailan fell to discussing the realism of certain battle scenes soon, and Gwyn weighed in with some of what she had learned in her own combat instruction, and Berchan and Deric were impressed and wanted to go to the training yards with her, and Pearl was a little frightened, but in a way that was rather fun to see, and soon Gwyn was chatting with Cailan and Anora and the young nobles at court like they were _all_ old friends and having a marvelous time.

Maybe court wouldn't be so bad after all.

* * *

**iii.**

"Can you pretend we're having some lovely, polite, perfectly innocuous conversation about your exercises with my brothers in the training yards?" Lady Izot Wolff asked Gwyn, stepping casually into the alcove to stand beside Gwyn and Nan in the gallery of the palace ballroom.

Gwyn was bewildered. Izot's face was turned away, like she was watching the dancers down below, but Gwyn didn't think she was, really. Her shoulders were too tight, and she was twisting her right-hand glove in both hands, like she was nervous. "You don't like talking about the training yards," Gwyn told the older girl.

"No, I don't," Izot admitted freely. "_Watching_ warriors in the training yards is one thing, but you and my younger brothers are hardly that just yet. I just need an excuse _not_ to talk to Lord Vaughan. He's a _pig_!"

She spat this last. Gwyn was inclined to agree. Arl Urien's son and heir was her least favorite of all the young nobles at court. His father didn't seem to care that he was already drinking huge goblets of wine at luncheon—and at fifteen, when Mother hadn't let Fergus have even a little wine at supper until sixteen. Vaughan talked about the looks of the girls at court, in front of other girls. He hit his horse to make it go faster, and Gwyn had seen him hit a servant once to encourage her to move faster too.

But— "Anora was teasing you about him on Tuesday. She made it sound like you like him."

Izot stuck her gloves in her sash and flicked out her fan in almost the exact same motion Gwyn used to throw her knives. "Lady Anora says all sorts of things."

Gwyn frowned. Izot sounded like she was insulting Anora. "I like Anora. She's been very kind to me." On more than one occasion, Anora had told Father that she would personally look after Gwyn, saying Nan should have the opportunity to enjoy the city too, but really enabling Gwyn to get away from her nurse for entire afternoons together. Anora was always friendly, always interesting, and even though she was so much older, she never forgot about Gwyn or left her out like some of the other boys and girls at court sometimes did. They didn't mean to, mostly. It was just that most of them either lived here in Denerim or had been to court before. They had known one another for longer.

But Izot was looking at her now like she was some kind of idiot, and Gwyn felt herself go hot all over. "It would be rather hard to be unkind to a girl the prince of Ferelden told one to look after, wouldn't it?" Izot said, pointedly. "Your father and grandfather are very important people, Lady Gwyn. There are only two teyrns in all Ferelden. William Cousland is one, and Bryce will be teyrn after he is. I assume your tutor has taught you _something_ about politics in those lessons you're always on about?"

Gwyn lifted her chin, angry both at Izot's tone and on Aldous's behalf. "Of course."

"Your father and grandfather have louder voices in the Landsmeet than anyone but Lady Anora's own father," Izot told her. "and like Teyrn Mac Tir, they enjoy King Maric's favor. They are not merely popular with the king, however. They also happen to be popular with the other nobles in the Landsmeet—something that Anora's father, Loghain, is _not_, for all his respect and all the trust the king places in him. Because they are such powerful people, it is important for _other_ powerful people to keep them happy. For example, by making little Gwyn Cousland's first stay at court an easy and pleasant one."

Gwyn's gaze fell, without her meaning it to, all the way to her shoes. Mother would scold her for the lapse in poise, but she couldn't help it. She wanted to cry.

_My father bade me_, the prince had said, the first day he had come to fetch her to lunch. Then he had bade Anora in turn: _You'll take her on while she stays at court, won't you? _How many times had Father given Gwyn herself an order phrased just that way?

_Just because I'm a Cousland . . . _

Gwyn remembered, now, how hard the prince had seemed to be trying to make her comfortable, how that in itself had made her a little uncomfortable, until Anora, the prettiest, nicest girl she'd ever seen, had convinced her that she really wanted to be friends. Anora had sat by Gwyn at the theater, helped her pick out ribbons in the market for a new dress, laughed with Gwyn over how the prince dreamed he would catch something in the woods with all of the noise he and his ten or twelve best friends made on a hunt. Gwyn had never once thought she might not mean it, that she was just doing all of it because the prince had told her to. She swallowed hard.

Nan, standing silently beside Gwyn as had become her habit, here, spoke up, stepping forward and taking Gwyn's hand into hers. "Don't fuss now, love. If His Majesty and His Highness asked Lady Anora to make things a little easier for you, they only meant it for the good, and only asked the lady because she's such a good friend to them in the first place, and because it was more proper-like, her being a young lady and all. It's not unusual for older girls to sponsor younger ones to the court, and if you know so much, my lady," she added, to Izot, glaring over at her fiercely, "you should know that too."

Izot seemed surprised. "Oh—you didn't think I meant they'd never have taken to you otherwise?" She glanced down at Gwyn and answered her own question. "No, as far as I can tell, Cailan's been legitimately impressed. The Soldier and the Seawolf's little scrapper, so adventurous and inquisitive, taking down boys two and three years older than she is in the yards? If you hadn't noticed, our prince is a bit of a romantic."

"I like that!" Nan burst out again, eyes flashing. "The Lady Gwyn is all of ten summers old. She's a child yet."

Izot rolled her eyes and waved a hand, dismissing all Nan's indignation. "Oh, that's not what I meant, and _you_ ought to know _that_. Prince Cailan's dramatic. He likes to be entertained. He likes her brother well enough, but your fierce little lady _entertains_ him. When he looks forward into the future and imagines himself as a great leader, he imagines warriors like the one she'll be someday around him."

Izot made it sound so silly, but Gwyn was more flattered than insulted. The prince ought to be looking forward to the future and picking out who he could trust to stand beside him one day, she thought. If Cailan had actually seen something in her, it was an honor, and it did something to soothe the feeling that he may have only ordered Anora to "take her on" because it was politic for him to do so.

But the other implications of everything Izot had said still stung. Gwyn looked up at the older girl. "But you don't think Anora would have bothered with me if Cailan didn't want her to."

Izot rolled her eyes again. "Look, if it makes you feel any better, Anora Mac Tir was always going to do what was best for Anora Mac Tir. She's smart enough to know it's a good idea to be your friend without Cailan telling her anything. She's three times as smart as he is, anyway. She doesn't have half as much actual good nature, but we're all of us hoping she gets her way anyway and becomes his princess someday, because it's the only way we know of the country won't go straight to the Void when King Maric dies."

Gwyn was horrified. She'd never heard anyone talk this way before, and about the prince! She opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came out. Nan protested for her. "Lady Izot, if your father knew what you were saying—"

"Father agrees with me," Izot retorted, with a toss of her head at Gwyn's nurse. "Keep your ears open. No one's said as much just yet, but everyone's worried. Oh, I grant you Cailan looks the part. For the better part of six months, I was in love with him, and I think every girl at court has their turn. King Maric must be the most beautiful man in Thedas, and Cailan's another just like him. But it's just looks. Looks and a grounding in court manners. Near sixteen, he's as much of a boy as he's ever been. And he doesn't want to be king."

She looked at Gwyn, with more heavy irony. Gwyn was starting to feel sick, and she thought Izot knew it, was enjoying it. "He's shown as much interest in what makes Ferelden go as _you_ have, little girl, in the little time _you've_ been here," Izot said. "He's ignorant, profligate, and only sporadically makes any effort at all to do better. Half sleeps through sessions of the Landsmeet and the king's audiences, and spends his days hunting and going to plays and parties instead, dreaming about the heroism of twenty and thirty years ago. _I_ don't blame him; administration is the dullest stuff in the world. But _I'm_ free to marry a commoner or a foreigner and pass Father's arling off to Berchan if I like someday. Cailan doesn't have that option."

Izot leaned back on one heel and crossed her arms. She was half talking to herself now. "There are plenty of people in the Landsmeet pressuring the king to marry again and produce another heir. They've passed the crown to younger children or to cousins in the past sometimes, though never away from the Theirins. But the king's forever true to Queen Rowan's memory or some such rot, and there are whispers that if Cailan _doesn't_ marry someone sensible and better suited to rule than he is, the Landsmeet might even elect another king entirely someday."

"No!" Gwyn said. She could keep silent no longer. She wrenched her hand away from Nan's and stood, trembling, glaring up at Lady Izot with as much fury and command as she had in her. "I will hear no more of this, Lady Izot. You approach treason."

Izot stared at her, dumbfounded. Then she laughed. "Disloyalty, certainly. I concede that much. But treason? No. The Landsmeet made Calenhad king, centuries ago. It's stuck by the Theirins for centuries, through some of the worst tyrants and boobies you could imagine. But every Theirin king or queen was first confirmed by the bigger tyrants and boobies in the Landsmeet. It isn't inconceivable that one day they might remember they choose who ascends the throne and decide to bet on another horse, so to speak. Not every Theirin is a King Maric, little girl. Most of them aren't. But there is a King Maric in almost every generation. And why should Cailan have to be king if he doesn't want to be? Why should anyone have to do what they don't want? I like Cailan, my lady Cousland. I know it seems like I don't, but I do. He's a sweet boy and a friend of mine. I just don't happen to think he's a very good prince, and I really think he'd agree with me.

"Quick, take my hand and laugh!" Her voice changed all at once, from disdainful, superior scorn to something near panic. Gwyn looked over her shoulder and saw Vaughan Kendells coming toward them, and despite the hot indignation and dislike she felt toward Lady Izot at the moment, she did take the older girl's hand.

"Lady Izot," Vaughan said, sweeping Izot a bow and reaching for her hand. Izot gave it to him reluctantly, and he brought it to his lips, holding it there for what seemed like longer than was really necessary. "I was hoping you might do me the honor of a dance."

Izot laughed, a bright, false sound. "I don't think so, Vaughan. It's getting late. Mama charged me with escorting Lady Gwyn up to where my brothers and some others close to their own age will be having their own little party for the rest of the evening. There'll be separate refreshments, and games, and the seneschal's arranged for a separate musician as well. I was looking forward to the brief respite from the fray. Perhaps I will see you when I return to the ballroom?"

"Please," Vaughan said. "Gwyn Cousland hardly requires a babysitter. She's proven that much. She can find her own way. Come away, Zotty. I'm sure your mother won't complain."

Gwyn wasn't sure if there was actually a smaller party somewhere else in the palace or not, but she knew her duty nonetheless. "Actually, I appreciate Lady Rosemary's concern, my lord. I got turned around trying to find the kennels just last Friday. I'm certain I could find the others on my own, but if Lady Izot is to escort me, you won't hear me objecting."

Izot smiled and shrugged helplessly at Vaughan. Her smile didn't reach her eyes. He grunted, rather gracelessly. "Well hurry back," he said. His breath was wine-sour, and Gwyn tried not to wince, even from over a meter away. "I've been waiting for you, Zotty. I want to see you. We can _chat_." He smiled at her, sniggered. Looked down at Gwyn, then winked at Izot. Gwyn's skin prickled, and she made a face.

Izot had held onto her hand all this time, and now she turned to Gwyn. "Come along then, Lady Gwyn," she said.

Nan followed them. "Begging your pardon, my lady, but you were right on about that one. He _is_ a pig, isn't he?"

"Thinks he's the world's gift to women at all of fifteen years old," Izot said scathingly, "and isn't prepared to take _no_ for an answer. He's a specky, scrawny, irrelevant arse, and vicious with it, with no good reason for it. The arl of Denerim is nothing. This is the seat of the king."

"Were you lying, about the party for the children?" Gwyn asked.

Izot smiled mirthlessly. "Lying Mama told me to bring you. I don't think she's even noticed you and my brothers are friends, never mind being your friend is just as good for our family as it is for Anora Mac Tir's. Mama's got her own intrigues. But didn't I hear Berchan complaining _Gwyn's_ father was letting her stay through the _entire_ ball?"

"He wanted to introduce me to some more of the nobles of the Landsmeet," Gwyn confirmed. "but I think we're leaving early. I should go find him soon, or Grandfather. I think Grandfather was talking with Teyrn Mac Tir, Arl Howe, and some others, and Father went off to dance with Bann Edric's daughter, Alfstanna. Do you know her?"

Alfstanna was a grown-up lady, not part of Prince Maric's social circle at all, but her father's bannorn of Waking Sea technically fell under Grandfather's teyrnir, though it was outside the bounds of Highever proper. She and her parents were good friends, if not as close as the Howes, and Gwyn particularly liked her because even though she was married to a minor nobleman from the arling of Amaranthine, she hadn't left Waking Sea to go live with her husband and left the bannorn to her younger brothers, like Izot had talked about doing with Berchan. Instead, her husband had gone to live with her, and she was already beginning to take on her father's duties in the bannorn, like Father was starting to do for Grandfather.

But Izot nodded. "Know of her, at any rate. She's powerful and popular, especially considering she's only the daughter of a bann. My father speaks well of her." She paused, slowing her step somewhat.

"I hope you know I didn't mean it, before," she said, sounding suddenly gentle. "Anora manipulated Vaughan into fixating the worst of his odium onto me. He was giving _her_ a horrid time before, so I half get it, but I was angry with her, and court life is _horse shit_, and—"when Gwyn flinched, unused to hearing words like that from ladies like Mother wanted her to be someday, Izot smiled, a more genuine smile than any she'd used so far. "And you're so fresh and young and earnest and _Cousland_, it's a little fun appalling you. But you're a good friend to my brothers, and you've been a friend to me tonight, even though I haven't deserved it. I hope you know I really am rooting for Cailan in the end. I feel for him. Like I said, he's my friend. I hope he'll work it out. And if by some horrid, unforeseen twist of fate I find myself unable to ditch my own say in the Landsmeet someday, I will stand behind him. Whether he does the sensible thing and marries Anora Mac Tir or not."

Gwyn looked at Izot. It sounded like she was trying to apologize, and it sounded genuine, but she remembered what Izot had said about Lady Rosemary too. "Are you trying to smooth it all over because you were wrong or because you want me to forgive you?" she asked.

Izot laughed, her eyes suddenly sparking to life once more. "They all do say you're clever. Very occasionally, it's both, Gwyn Cousland. But you don't need to worry about me. I'm an outspoken outlier, and I don't care for the Game the rest of them play. Like Cailan at his princely duties, I only ever sporadically make any effort. _You _won't be able to get away from it, I fear, unless you do something _really_ disgraceful, maybe even worse than marrying a commoner or a foreigner. I halfway hope you do. Shake the rest of them up. But if you don't, and you just start trying to recognize some of the horse shit, at least you're less likely to step in it."

None of this made any sense to Gwyn at all, but she could see Izot really did mean it, and they were close to a side exit that would let her out of the ballroom. So Gwyn shook her hand. "Have a good night, my lady. If you see Berchan and Deric, tell them I'm sorry Father wants me here instead of there. They'll probably have more fun than I will for the rest of the night, and I'll see them in the practice yards tomorrow."

Izot pressed her hand right back. "I'll probably just grab Ebbie and go home, but if they come see me before Nurse puts them to bed later, I'll let them know."

Gwyn watched Izot swish away out the side door and began walking down the gallery with Nan again, idly looking down at the dance floor. Father was dancing with an elderly woman she didn't know now, a woman at least as old as Grandfather, and she was smiling like anything. Gwyn smiled too. Father was like that. Later, when he stopped dancing and started looking for her and Nan, he would bring them both a snack and all the news he'd collected since he'd gone, with apologies for leaving them to be bored stiff while he was off making sure other people had a good time. Except how could Gwyn be bored at her first ever court ball?

Cailan and Anora were dancing too, down there, their sunbeam heads shining together in the candlelight. Anora was a vision in a vivid green gown that Mother probably wouldn't approve of for Gwyn, even when she herself was fifteen. Gwyn looked down at her flat, little-girl's chest. _If I ever have the shape to fill it out. _

Cailan wore gold. He and Anora seemed to fit together, somehow. Izot had said some horrid things about both of them, but her idea that they might get married someday and balance one another out made sense. _Cailan says she's like his sister. But he loves her. She's his best friend, and that's better than a lot of people get._ And . . . more of what Izot had said made sense, particularly about Cailan, than she really should have said. Gwyn remembered how she had felt when she first met Prince Cailan. There was no word for it but "dazzled." But she was a few weeks into her stay at Denerim now. She still thought the prince was lovely. Interesting and fun and much, much kinder than he had to be. But he really was also kind of silly. _But if he marries Anora, he'll be all right, won't he? The Landsmeet will still support him. They've got to. _

_Anyway, _I_ always will. A Cousland does her duty. And he's _my_ friend too. _

Except now she had to wonder, how many of the boys and girls she had met here actually were her friends, and how many of them were just politicking, making up to the granddaughter of the teyrn of Highever. Gwyn was just the teyrn's grandchild, and a younger grandchild at that_. _She knew, in the big scheme of things, she wasn't that important in and of herself. But her grandfather was teyrn, and her father and brother would be teyrn after he was, and their family did have the ear and the respect of the king. So she knew Izot was right—making up to her could matter. Who she was friends with, who she married, someday, could possibly change the map of Ferelden, or even Thedas, in its own small way.

The gallery opened up onto a sitting room off the ballroom. Gwyn saw Grandfather there, sitting in bearskin armchairs around a hearth with Teyrn Mac Tir, Arl Howe, and a few older men she didn't know. Sella saw her and whined, back in her throat. Her hindquarters started wriggling, and Gwyn smiled and went to her, scratching Sella in the folds around her big mabari head.

"There you are," Grandfather said. "I was wondering where you had got to, Gwyn."

Gwyn stood up and kissed his bearded cheek. "Right here, Grandfather."

"You've all met my granddaughter, Bryce and Eleanor's youngest, Gwyn?"

Gwyn curtseyed and endured the usual polite compliments and welcomes before sitting on the footstool beside Grandfather, arm around Sella. Sella's hot, doggy breath was somehow comforting. Grandfather's acquaintance went back to discussing the best way to handle bandits on roads between bannorn, but Grandfather was quiet, like he was most of the time, listening. He put his hand on Gwyn's shoulder, rubbing it every now and then, and it was as comforting as Sella's breath on her face.

Eventually, Gwyn asked him, "Grandfather, what's the Game?"

He looked down at her. "Yes," he said after a moment. "I suppose that might have come up in recent weeks. 'The Game' is what Orlesians call a particular way of playing court politics, Gwyn."

"An insidious, backstabbing business," Teyrn Mac Tir cut in. Loghain had the same straight nose that Anora did, something of the same mouth, and the same eyes—cold, clear blue like a frozen pond in winter—but otherwise he was darker than his daughter, not as pale, with black hair, and straight, black brows that gave him a rather hawk-like appearance. He had no beard. "The aim is to gain whatever power one can, by whatever means one can, and honor be damned. Anything is permissible, so long as one doesn't get caught. In the ballrooms of Orlais, men and women are blackmailed, seduced, and assassinated. Each noble is attempting to gain the advantage against the others. Spying out secrets. Fawning on those in favor to curry it for themselves, only to betray their so-called allies at the most opportune time."

"That's horrible!" Gwyn said.

"Quite," Arl Rendon said. "Unfortunately, Loghain, that particular style of politics can hardly be said to be confined entirely to Orlais anymore."

"I doubt it ever was," Grandfather said. "I believe deceptions and intrigues have arisen in every court of power to exist, and they are quite as popular in Tevinter and in the halls of Orzammar as they are in Orlais, though, to their credit, the Tevene and the dwarves don't glamorize it so."

"That's the essence, though, isn't it?" Loghain said. "The Orlesians _glamorize_ it. They treat lying as some coveted skill to be acquired, and poisoning one's political rivals at a party as a rather interesting diversion. And Howe, you're right: unfortunately, while the Orlesians were brutalizing our people and sitting in our homes, they taught many of our own nobles their pestilential _Game_." He spat the word like a curse. "Everyone jockeying for position and betraying those they disagree with instead of killing them in honest combat like civilized folk."

"Civilized!" Howe laughed. "I'm not certain the Orlesians would agree with you on your standards of civility."

"No, nor do I agree with theirs," Teyrn Loghain retorted. "Fortunately, if we remain vigilant, I shall never have to deal with Orlesian civility again."

"You might," Gwyn pointed out, "if some Fereldan nobles are playing politics like the Orlesians."

"Have you learned so much about it then, in your few weeks at court?" Arl Rendon asked, amused.

Gwyn bridled, but Grandfather patted her shoulder. "What have you learned, Gwyn? What brought all this on?"

Gwyn felt herself blushing as everyone in the little sitting room looked at her. "Well, people don't always say or do what they mean," she said. "That's all. Like a lady might invite someone to a party she would really rather not or thought was boring, just to—to curry favor with someone important. Is that right?" she asked Teyrn Mac Tir. "Curry favor?"

Loghain's mouth twitched. "That's right. Go on."

Gwyn nodded, encouraged. "Or a woman might not pay much attention to what her children were doing or thinking about, because she was too busy meeting with other people who made her feel important—or actually important," she added, frowning. "I'm not really sure yet."

She looked at Teyrn Loghain and bit her lip. "Or a girl might hint to a boy she didn't like that another girl might like him instead, so she could spend more time with the boy that she did like. Except that second boy might truly just be someone it was smart to like, and not really someone she really liked at all, or not that way, even if the two of them were good friends. Or she might make another girl think that they were friends, or actually become friends, just because it was smart, or someone important told her to, and not because she actually wanted to."

"Rather more innocuous than the usual ways to play the Grand Game one thinks of," Arl Rendon observed.

"But it's all the same thing, isn't it?" Gwyn demanded, turning to look at the arl. "Turning some speck-faced toad onto someone else just because you don't want him seems pretty hurtful to me. Then _she_ has to deal with him. Wouldn't it be better to just tell the nauseous arse—sorry—wouldn't it be better just to turn him down flat to begin with? Then at least it's not your fault when he starts bothering someone else."

Grandfather and some of the others were laughing. "Is there a particular lady that's being bothered by a particular gentleman?" Grandfather asked. "Or do you just find this a particularly useful illustration of your point?"

Gwyn froze. She looked at Teyrn Loghain. She didn't want him to know that Anora had set Vaughan after Izot. Not that Vaughan had probably needed much urging; he _was_ a pig. But still.

"It just works," she lied. "And if people just make friends with people who are politically expedient, they're likely to betray them the instant it _stops_ being politically expedient, aren't they? Isn't that stabbing them in the back?"

"It is," Loghain agreed, and Gwyn hugged Sella, burying her burning face into the mabari's rough, coarse fur so the teyrn wouldn't see. She didn't want him to agree with her. She wanted him to say it was all right, what Anora was doing, not just a slightly less lethal version of the Orlesian Game he hated so much. "It is more honorable to be forthright. And more productive."

"I don't know about that," Arl Rendon disagreed. "Sometimes, social alliances require a little . . . lubrication. Not everyone is blessed to begin in a position of power, you know. Harmless niceties like the kind Lady Gwyn's describing, subtle _maneuver_, is a far cry from the kind of treachery and murder that goes on when Orlesians play the Grand Game. Sometimes, it's the only way to get a say in what goes on, on the bigger stage." He looked around at everyone. "Come now, I'm sure all of us have put on something of an Orlesian mask at one point or other—to negotiate a little favor, get along . . . advocate for . . . advantages for the people we are charged with protecting. And if sometimes that requires a little additional knowledge about the people we happen to be dealing with, just a little bit of leverage—well, it isn't wrong to make use of what's available, is it?"

Gwyn had sat up. She stared at Arl Rendon. "It is if you're hurting someone else," she said. "Or just using them, so _you_ can get ahead. Even you. Say you are advocating for the people of Amaranthine, trying to make a deal for stone from Redcliffe, or trade routes down the Drakon, maybe. If the deal you negotiate is good for Amaranthine but no good for the people in Redcliffe, or the people down the river, because you used a little bit of leverage, or put a mask on over what things were like in Amaranthine maybe, the deal's no good at all. You've hurt the people someplace else to gain an advantage for your own."

"Well said, pup." Everyone turned from the conversation to look back toward the gallery. It was Father, finally back from dancing. He had two glasses of juice and two plates of cake with him, just like Gwyn had known he would, and he handed them to Gwyn and to Nan without a word about it. "I'm sorry I left you both for so long," he said to Gwyn and Grandfather. "What is it we were speaking of? Fair dealing?"

"The Grand Game," Grandfather told him, "and what it means to deal personally or politically according to that tradition, as well as the morality and immorality of doing so. Howe, I think, takes the tack that we have all at some point been guilty of a certain amount of maneuver in furthering our own objectives, and that it is no crime, especially when we find ourselves in the weaker position, and that we in Ferelden are certainly not so steeped in intrigue as they are in Orlais. Teyrn Mac Tir seems to believe that any cultural aspects we may have learned from the Orlesians ought to be rejected entirely—" Grandfather smiled, and a few of the others chuckled, so Gwyn knew Grandfather was teasing. "But truly, I think the teyrn of Gwaren is on our Gwyn's side of the argument—in favor of open and honorable dealings in all aspects of our lives, even if it might mean we are in for a little more turbulence."

"Indeed," Loghain agreed. "That is more or less the sense of it. Not the conversation I would have expected to have with your daughter this evening, Bryce, but Anora speaks quite highly of her. She's told me you're good company," he added, to Gwyn. "Especially for a child of your age. Anora was always smart herself. Perhaps the two of you will see more of each other in years to come."

Gwyn shifted. "Perhaps, my lord. Maybe the two of you could come to Highever. Things are simpler there." Maybe if Anora wasn't at court, trying to please the prince or forge alliances or whatever it was that she thought she was doing, Gwyn could get a better idea of whether they could really be friends or not. Gwyn didn't think Anora could have any reason to tell her father that Gwyn was good company unless she really thought so. Teyrn Loghain hadn't asked Anora to make friends with her. And Anora was good company herself—really better than anyone Gwyn had ever met—but now that Gwyn was fairly certain it was because Anora meant to be, she _wasn't _certain if she actually liked the older girl.

Loghain bared his teeth. He meant to smile, Gwyn thought, and there wasn't anything really threatening about it. He just didn't strike her as a man very used to smiling. "No doubt things are simpler in Highever."

The conversation turned back to polite small talk then—Father seconding Gwyn's invitation to the teyrn, a comparison of the climate in Highever and in Gwaren, Father asking after Teyrna Maeve Mac Tir, who ruled Gwaren in her husband's stead when he came to court with Anora, like Mother occasionally did for Father and Grandfather.

"It's getting late," Grandfather murmured a while into it, after Gwyn had finished her cake and the two of them had been listening to it all for what felt like another half hour. "We should get you home and into bed, my girl. Bryce?"

Father hadn't heard Grandfather before, but he understood at once. "Yes, we need to go," he agreed. "How did we let it get so late? I'm sorry, gentlemen, but if we keep my daughter out much later, Mistress Pulver will certainly tell my wife when we return. Eleanor would never forgive me."

"Send the nurse home," Howe suggested. "Surely you brought an escort to the ball that could take the two of them back to the house. Come, stay a little later."

"Would that I could," Father said. "I've still to try that beer you recommended, Rendon, and I trust we'll sit down of an evening to sample some before it's time for us to take ship home. But it is well dark outside, and even if we had ten men instead of just the pair, I would rather see someone so precious to all of us home myself. You must understand that."

"Of course," Loghain said. As Grandfather and Gwyn stood up, he bowed to Gwyn just as if she was a grown-up lady. "And, if I may, thank you for your conversation tonight, my lady."

"Yes," Howe agreed, smiling down at her. "I always enjoy our interviews, child. She's a real little spitfire, Bryce."

"No," Loghain said suddenly, before Father said anything back to Arl Rendon. "She's a firebrand."

Father looked at the teyrn, surprised. "That she is," he said, sounding very pleased. "Thank the teyrn, Gwyn."

Gwyn shot Father a look. Of course she knew that much. She curtsied to Loghain. "Thank you for listening," she told him. "And thank you for the compliment. I enjoyed talking with you too."

"Good night," the teyrn said, and the others said goodbye too. Gwyn walked out of the ballroom holding Grandfather's hand, Father summoned their guards from a front room where they had been playing cards with some others, and they all started walking home through the quiet, dark city streets.

"You've made a friend there, Gwyn," Grandfather said after a while. "The teyrn of Gwaren isn't an easy man to impress."

"I like him," Gwyn said decisively. She knew Izot was right about him—he wasn't the most popular noble in the Landsmeet. Respected and important, yes. He was steward to the king and a hero of Ferelden. But people didn't _like_ him like they liked the king or people like Father, Bann Teagan, and Lady Alfstanna. He wasn't much like Anora. He was too rough, _too_ honest—a little rude, even. But she found she didn't really mind all that so much.

"He's worth liking," Father said. "He can be blunt, and hard enough, but he's got to have one of the most strategic minds alive. Maric's voice united all Ferelden behind him against the Orlesians, but never doubt that Loghain Mac Tir is the reason that we _won_, pup. He deserved every honor Maric gave him."

"Some people don't think so, though," Gwyn said suddenly, remembering what Izot had said about the teyrn's standing in the Landsmeet. "Some people think, because he was just a commoner before, that he isn't worth paying attention to." All at once, Gwyn thought she understood why Anora—who, after all, was only child and heir to the teyrn of Gwaren and the prettiest girl she'd ever seen or heard of—might think she needed to play the Grand Game like an Orlesian for power and respect. _A certain amount of maneuver is no crime_, Grandfather had said, restating Howe's more pragmatic position in their argument, _especially when we find ourselves in the weaker position_. Anora felt weak. Or other people thought she was, because her father had been common. _And her mother._ Teyrna Maeve Mac Tir had been a tradeswoman.

_But that's rubbish. Anora is probably the strongest person I've ever met. _

"It's foolishness to judge a man by birth," Father said. "Several of the richest and most important nobles in Thedas also happen to be idiots—"

"'Tyrants and boobies,'" Gwyn murmured.

Father laughed. "Tyrants and boobies," he agreed. "And some of the wisest and most useful people I have known have been peasant farmers. King Maric, fortunately, knows how to recognize worth wherever he finds it."

"I'm glad," Gwyn said. "I understand why the king likes Teyrn Loghain so much. He doesn't lie or pretend. King Maric must always know exactly where he stands with the teyrn, and that must be even harder for the king than it is for everyone else."

"Gwyn," Grandfather said, squeezing her hand as they rounded the corner onto the street that led to the Denerim house, "you said you weren't speaking about anyone in particular, before. But all this about the Game, about ladies turning nauseous arses onto some other poor ladies, or making friends—male or female—just for political expediency. I know you aren't telling me that it came from nowhere."

His voice was gentle. Father, from Gwyn's other side, looked down at her too, then back at Nan, following behind them and chatting with one of the guards. Nan caught the look. "What is it, milord?"

"Is there anything you and Gwyn need to tell us?" Father asked.

Gwyn loved Nan right then, the old tyrant. She just curtsied to Father and said, "That would depend on my lady, I think, milord. Gwyn?"

Gwyn hesitated. She pressed her lips together. "Maybe my examples weren't _entirely_ made up," she admitted finally. She looked up at Father. "Arl Urien's son, Vaughan, isn't a nice boy. I don't know why the prince associates with him, even casually. I don't like him, and Mother wouldn't either." she said. "He's been after Izot, Berchan and Deric Wulff's elder sister. She doesn't like it. She left the ball earlier than we did to avoid him." Gwyn fidgeted. She wondered if she was gossiping, but her conscience didn't feel like it did when she gossiped. And when she looked back, Nan nodded at her, approving.

Father sighed. "Arl Urien is one of your tyrants and boobies," he said heavily. "Imperious and vindictive, even vicious, but he was a hero in the war and keeps the city well in hand. He does not, however, keep his son well in hand. Cailan no doubt associates with Vaughan due to proximity; other noble children come and go, but Vaughan lives here year-round. I hadn't heard they were particularly close."

"They aren't," Gwyn admitted. "Not close. Cailan calls Vaughan an arse too, whenever he's particularly awful. But he never stops him. And Izot _doesn't_ want him, but Vaughan doesn't seem like he understands that."

"I'll have a word with Gallagher," Grandfather promised. "He can intervene on behalf of his daughter, if the situation merits it. But I infer this odious son of the arl of Denerim was 'turned onto' Lady Izot by another lady he had been pursuing instead?"

Gwyn hesitated again. Then— "If you talk to Arl Wulff, I don't think it should be a problem."

"And that's all you have to say about it?" Grandfather prodded.

Gwyn paused. "That's all I have to say," she confirmed. "No one's tried to _poison_ me, Grandfather. Right now, it's more useful to be my friend. And maybe Arl Howe was right. What's the harm?" She swallowed, looking straight ahead into the courtyard. A lamp was burning over the entryway.

"Maybe _you_ were right instead," Grandfather said, squeezing her hand. "But it's not a bad thing to have your eyes open, my girl. And I think you'll make true friends along with any political ones that may or may not have been trying to court you." His voice was so gentle, and Gwyn thought Grandfather knew about Anora, how Gwyn was going over everything that had happened with everyone else she had met since they had first come to court, second-guessing who liked her for her, and who liked her just because she was a Cousland, or because Prince Cailan did, maybe, a little. Just because it was the smart thing to do.

"I think," Father added, "that we've established that you already have."

He put his arm around her and hugged her, and Gwyn relaxed into his side. She kept looking up at the lamp over the entryway. Izot said that if Gwyn learned to recognize some of the horse shit, she was less likely to step in it. She thought Izot meant that if Gwyn could somehow learn to see through the politics and maneuver—through the _Game_—to what was real and what was just some sort of mask, put on to gain an advantage, that she would somehow be all right, whatever happened.

And Arl Howe called her a little spitfire, but Teyrn Mac Tir called her a firebrand.

Firebrands were made for seeing better.

* * *

**A/N: Wow, this ended up being a monster too. Not as action-packed as Cullen or Leto's chapters, and I confess I used Izot Wulff as Madam Exposition a little bit there, but Cousland is the only character who could possibly get to know some of these characters in quite this way (and probably did). In addition, her impressions of court and her feelings about politicking are important to understanding who she is as a person. **

**This chapter is also possibly the only time Loghain Mac Tir and Rendon Howe will appear in this series, and they are so important. Other characters here you are definitely seeing again.**

**Enjoy this chapter of everyone socializing like a lot of us can't right now. Reach out to your friends and family if you can't see them in person. We need one another! **

**This is the last chapter of this volume of the Subjects and Singers of the Song. We'll pick back up next week with Volume Four!**

**Leave a review if you've got something to say,**

**LMS**


	17. Author's Note

**Thanks for reading **_**Seek and Find**_**, the third volume of my Subjects and Singers of the Song series. A special thanks to those of you who took the time to review and let me know your thoughts as you went along. The fourth volume, **_**Love and Loss**_**, covering the years 9:21-9:25 Dragon, is now posting Wednesdays. **

**This volume had a sort of amorphous focus on the changes children experience as their worlds become more complicated. The next will take a closer look at first romances. Some of the characters in this series have run up against grief already. The next volume sees several more of them do so, and in different ways. The ten characters in my series continue their metamorphosis into the characters you know from the Dragon Age games. Cassandra becomes Right Hand of the Divine and takes up with a certain young Circle mage. Leto is now Fenris. Alistair learns who he is. Cullen begins training as a Templar. Bryce Cousland becomes teyrn of Highever. Did you ever want to hear the story (a story) of Varric and Bianca? All this and more will be in the next volume. You can find it on my profile.**

**A word: thus far, I've been several chapters ahead of my posting schedule. But as these characters are becoming more adult, their stories are becoming more complex. I may, over the course of this story, switch to a biweekly posting schedule. I'll notify you if that happens, but I want to try to maintain a regular schedule while I can. The world is crazy right now. I need to write stories, and I need to read them too. I'm guessing others of you are in the same boat.**

**Stay safe. Stay sane.**

**LMSharp**


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